Our last two days are already there, time really flies when you are having fun. Because you see so many new things there is no time to think about what day it is or how long of our trip is left, but now I realize we are soon in Netherland again. In one hand I am very glad to go back: no bad smells anymore, no irritating salesmen, no crazy traffic, no stomach ache because of the spicy or bad prepared food. But on the other hand I kind of liked the whole trip, especially the Nepali part but also India, it is very interesting to be in such another environment.
Today and tomorrow we will take it very easy, visit some touristical highlights and have some last shoppingtime. Fenna joined us again today after her short time in Udaipur. It was great overthere so she says; clean, no irritating salesmen, beautiful palaces, etc. (kind of what we hoped to find in India somewhere along the way). Maybe next time we will go to Rajasthan and the more wealthy south of India.
Most interesting of all the touristical highlights in Delhi is the Gandi museum, I think. There is a very complete graphical exposition about his life together with many of his original belongings. Also we find one of the three bullets that killed him in 1948 and the sheet with his blood after the asassination. The whole gives a really good impression of the person behind the sandals and the wooden stick, fascinating!
Most disappointing of the touristical highlights was by far the Hama Masjid mosk. At the entrance we have to pay 200 rupee each (like 3,20 euro) for every camera we have with us, even if we don’t use it. Crazy! And we can’t store them somewhere so it is paying or leaving. When I say I will ask a policeman about this, the guy gets very angry and shouts all kind of things I can’t follow. We decide to try it again at another entrance and this time we find a nicer guard. In the end we let one of us wait outside with the cameras so the other two can go in to take a look at the biggest mosk of India. It is pretty big, but not much more, not really worth all this effort we think. And when we go out I also get another argument with a guy who kept my slippers. He wants money for watching my slippers for about 3 minutes and I only have it in my backpack 10 meters away, because I had to change trousers since they don’t like short trousers in a mosk. So when I point and say I will get it from there he shouts and gets angry at me. Probably he doesn’t speak any english, but it is unbelievable how rude, impatient and moneyminded all this people are here. This is not very good advertising for this religion, because today many of the people at the mosk were kind of aggressive and not very nice to us. It was not a positive experience at all.
To end the story a bit positive; we shopped very well here in Main Bazaar Street and found a very good small restaurant, with occasionally briljant banana-mango lassi. Delhi is not really a place where I would go again for holiday, but maybe that is because we had very little time and were kind of tired after our long journey. Tonight at 02.00 am our taxi will bring us to I.G.I. (Indira Gandhi International) Airport, hopefully we can get some sleep untill then.