Continued from Agra Part 3.

I didn’t sleep in as long as I wanted. But regardless, I am going to take it easy today. I took so many photos yesterday that it’ll take me a while to post everything. My friend SW and her friend HB are also flying into Delhi today! It’ll be really cool to have a good friend from Austin and a new friend to hang out with here in Delhi!

I am trying the Western breakfast option. Omelet.

Then I blogged like crazy for a few hours until it was time for lunch.

Small lunch, for me. This is the onion based curry.

It’s already almost 1PM by the time I made it out the door into the wilderness.

Alignment at 1/50 of US prices.

I saw this ox cart full on trot down the street. Interesting…

Not too many people on the metro at this hour. Nice.

I am looking for gate 3,4. By the way, the signage isn’t the great in the Delhi Metro for telling you which exit leads to which street. I have yet to find a map of the station showing where all the exits lead to. Of what I can remember, Paris Metro is still the best as far as signage goes.

What waits above?

This is Rajpath, the national mall of India.

On one end of Rajpath is Rashtrapati Bhavan, the residence of the president. Before Independent India, the viceroy stayed here.

On the other end is India Gate.

Like the Washington national mall, the scales are enormous. You walk and walk and walk, and you get no where fast.

One of the biggest intersections I’ve ever seen.

Secretariat Building. There’s also another one that mirrors this across the road.

The Hindustan Ambassador. These are official India Gov cars. I don’t get this. India obviously has many capable car manufacturers, such as Tata Motors, so why stick with such an old design for their official cars?

There’s the presidential residence.

Nice imposing gate.

And that’s that. This is as close as I could get. The grounds are enormous.

Looking down from Raisina Hill with the presidential residence behind me, Secretariat buildings flanking each side, and India gate down the road.

Lots of people asleep on the lawn over here. These are obviously people who work in the area and not just homeless people. There are also no touts over here like the rest of Delhi. But also, not many tourists. For all the grandeur, this area is pretty boring. You just walk and walk and walk, finally reach a building, take a photo of it from far away, and that’s that.

Rickshaw sized DHL truck.

Now I walk back down…

Screw that, I am taking a rickshaw. Wwwweeeeeee!!

Very nicely manicured area. This is a street that runs parallel to the Rajpath.

Lonely Planet recommended this place. I’ve never used Lonely Planet, or any sort of guidebook for that matter until this trip. There’s just overwhelming information regarding traveling in India that I had to just go to a single and simplified source.

That’s a pretty expensive ticket.

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This one was my favorite, and that’s about it. This museum sucked. I can’t believe it made Lonely Planet’s top sights list. I tried the entire time in the museum to find an artifact of a pipe so that I can post that photo and comment “what crack pipe was Lonely Planet smoking recommending this as a top sight?” For a “National” museum, this was a great disappointment. Lots of galleries were closed. There’s construction material just sprawled out everywhere. It felt like a museum that you see a sign for on the side of the interstate. You take the exit, show up to this half falling over building, go in, and it’s just very lame. That’s exactly what this is, but just 3 times the size of one of those shitty museums. Don’t come here if you come to Delhi, there are much better things to see and do. I left after 15 minutes and went back to Rajpath.

This is as close as I am going to get to the India Gate. Tired of walking and walking only to see one thing way in the distance.

Looking back from the same spot as the previous photo to the presidential residence.

There is a small row of slums that line the edge of Rajpath. Here are the kids from the slum taking a shower and swimming in the water features of the Rajpath.

Sad fact. Neither are treated much differently in this country.

I didn’t feel like seeing anything else today. Still tired and lazy from the long day yesterday. Decided to just head back to my hotel. SW’s friend HB flies in mid afternoon today and she is supposed to wait at my hotel for SW, who will be arriving later tonight. I’ll just go back to the hotel, blog and wait for HB to show up.

I saw this man with Holi colors on his ear. Some are already starting the celebration early. This is a precursor to tomorrow.

Holi colors.

Karo Bagh market, next to the subway station by my hotel. It was during this time that I started not feeling well. I had to turn and go head back to hotel, which was about a 5 minutes walk away. I had Little Delhi(like Little Italy) Belly. I wouldn’t even count this as Delhi Belly as it was just an isolated incident. Those placing bets on when and how often I would get sick can now go and dispute amongst themselves whether this one counts or not.

I blogged in the lobby of the hotel, then HB showed up at around 4 or so. We chatted for a bit, and then we started looking for a place for her and SW to stay. We found one in Lonely Planet, and she took a rickshaw and was on her way there. We made plans to call each other’s hotel at 9 tomorrow morning to met up. Neither of our cell phones work so communication is a problem and has to be planned out carefully way before hand.

Here’s HB leaving to catch her rickshaw. Heavily jet lagged and tired, but happy to be in India!

Saw this on the way back from walking HB to get her rickshaw.

I also had a water balloon thrown at me. It barely missed and exploded around my feet. I quickly ran back into the safety of the hotel.

Malai kofta and some other curry. My stomach felt fine by now, so time to chow. I really enjoyed the Malai kofta.

Our original plan was for SW to get picked up by a hotel called cab to meet me and HB then figure out what to do with their accommodations. But since HB had already found a place, we had to tell the hotel cab driver to drive SW straight to HB’s new found hotel. We had no way of contacting SW other than through the driver, and I am not sure if she would freakout if the driver drove her to a different hotel than what she was expecting. We decided to write her notes and staple them to her name board that the driver will use at the airport.

To be continued at Delhi Day 5, Holi.