At 8:00 on Monday, November 9th, we were picked up by our driver for the next two days, Narayan, in a white Toyota. He drove us into Old Delhi, where he dropped us off by a line of pedal-rickshaws. There we met our guide, Ritu, one of the two young women who owned the company running this Old Delhi rickshaw tour, as well as our fellow-tourists, ten of us all-in-all. We each were given an audio set, to hear Ritu's narration, and parceled out two-by-two into rickshaws. The tour started across the street from the massive seventeenth-century Red Fort (not open on Mondays), and went up the Chandni Chowk, the main street of Old Delhi, today filled with people doing last-minute shopping for Diwali--clay lamps, electric lights, candy, nuts, flower garlands, firecrackers, etc.
We turned off to visit the Jama Masjid (Friday Mosque), the largest mosque in India. Ritu had slippers for us as we took off our shoes. I decided not to pay the three hundred rupees to take my camera inside, and left it with Ritu. Instead of being a great basilica-like hall, like other mosques I've seen, this is mostly a huge courtyard, fronted by a sort of stage--it's more like a stadium than a church.
We got on our rickshaws and headed back to the Chandni Chowk. The tour took us to a partly-ruined seventeenth-century haveli, or mansion,
the spice bazaar, 
a spice and tea shop (where we had a shopping opportunity), a little restaurant (where we sampled sweets and snacks). We ended with a whirlwind ride through the various narrow bazaar streets, each with a different specialty, from jewelry to silks to eyeglasses to shoes.
It was an interesting tour. During the snack stop, we talked with a young British couple, who had met while they were both working in New York, and were now living in, of all places, Zug, Switzerland, with which we are, of course, very well acquainted. In addition, the woman works for the company from which I retired two years ago. The other American couple on the tour were native Minnesotans who had retired to Portland, Oregon. It's a small world.
After saying goodbye to Ritu and our rickshaw-driver, we were introduced to our afternoon guide, Naresh (?), who would show us the wonders of New Delhi. He said that it would take us five-and-a-half hours. In the end, due to the traffic situation, that would prove to be an underestimate. We got into Narayan's car and drove off.
First we went to Gandhi's cremation site.
Then we visited the Agrasen ki Baoli, a very impressive, very old well, with broad steps leading down, down to the well proper.
We visited the Gurudwara Bangla Sahib, a large Sikh temple, which was very interesting.
We had to leave our shoes and socks in a sort of cloakroom, and put on orange headscarves. 
The Sikh holy book is displayed in a room covered with gold, while music is sung and played.
Just outside is a large pool, with supposedly miraculous powers. Sikh mothers bathe their infants there on five consecutive Sundays, to protect them against disability. 
Before that is a stand where a volunteer dumps a glob of sweet, sticky food in your hand. There is a large dining hall, where large numbers of people enter, sit in rows on the floor, are quickly and efficiently fed a vegetarian meal, by volunteers, then are ushered out and replaced by the next group. We went back into the kitchen, where these meals were being prepared. It is a very impressive operation, run by volunteers, and anyone who wants can have meal: there is no means test or religion test. We were greatly impressed.
We saw the President's House,
at a distance, and India Gate, from all sides.
We saw the tomb built for the second Moghul emperor, Humayun, in the 15th century, by his widow.
This was one of the models for the Taj Mahal. A group of uniformed schoolgirls was leaving as we entered.
Next was the Baha'i Lotus Temple. We couldn't go inside, but our guide told us that it was a bare meditation space, that the interest here was in the shape of the modern building, built to look like a huge lotus flower.
By now, around 3:30, traffic was horrendous, with everyone out doing Diwali shopping or visiting friends or family. It took us about an hour to get to our last stop, which the guide insisted would be the most impressive thing we had yet seen in India. This puzzled me, since I assumed that our last stop would be the Qutb Minar, a thirteenth-century minaret, from the very earliest days of Islamic rule in Delhi. What's impressive about a minaret? This one was very tall (the second-tallest in India) and beautiful. The pictures I had seen online hadn't done it justice. The simplicity and grace of Islamic architecture contrasts with the exuberant excess, in figures and colors, of South Indian temples like Sri Menakshee in Madurai. I don't like Baroque--St. Peter's in Rome annoys me. The two most beautiful buildings I saw in India were the Taj Mahal and the Qutb Minar.
Nearby, amid the ruins of a mosque built from Hindu temples, is a 23-foot-tall 5th-century iron pillar, apparently brought there as plunder in the early 13th century. Metallurgists have studied its corrosion-resistance properties.
At 5:30 the site closed, we said goodbye to our guide, who lived near at hand, and spent nearly two hours in wall-to-wall traffic before Narayan got us home and bade us farewell until 7:15 the next morning.
We got on our rickshaws and headed back to the Chandni Chowk. The tour took us to a partly-ruined seventeenth-century haveli, or mansion,
It was an interesting tour. During the snack stop, we talked with a young British couple, who had met while they were both working in New York, and were now living in, of all places, Zug, Switzerland, with which we are, of course, very well acquainted. In addition, the woman works for the company from which I retired two years ago. The other American couple on the tour were native Minnesotans who had retired to Portland, Oregon. It's a small world.
After saying goodbye to Ritu and our rickshaw-driver, we were introduced to our afternoon guide, Naresh (?), who would show us the wonders of New Delhi. He said that it would take us five-and-a-half hours. In the end, due to the traffic situation, that would prove to be an underestimate. We got into Narayan's car and drove off.
First we went to Gandhi's cremation site.
We visited the Gurudwara Bangla Sahib, a large Sikh temple, which was very interesting.
We saw the President's House,
We saw the tomb built for the second Moghul emperor, Humayun, in the 15th century, by his widow.
Next was the Baha'i Lotus Temple. We couldn't go inside, but our guide told us that it was a bare meditation space, that the interest here was in the shape of the modern building, built to look like a huge lotus flower.
By now, around 3:30, traffic was horrendous, with everyone out doing Diwali shopping or visiting friends or family. It took us about an hour to get to our last stop, which the guide insisted would be the most impressive thing we had yet seen in India. This puzzled me, since I assumed that our last stop would be the Qutb Minar, a thirteenth-century minaret, from the very earliest days of Islamic rule in Delhi. What's impressive about a minaret? This one was very tall (the second-tallest in India) and beautiful. The pictures I had seen online hadn't done it justice. The simplicity and grace of Islamic architecture contrasts with the exuberant excess, in figures and colors, of South Indian temples like Sri Menakshee in Madurai. I don't like Baroque--St. Peter's in Rome annoys me. The two most beautiful buildings I saw in India were the Taj Mahal and the Qutb Minar.
Nearby, amid the ruins of a mosque built from Hindu temples, is a 23-foot-tall 5th-century iron pillar, apparently brought there as plunder in the early 13th century. Metallurgists have studied its corrosion-resistance properties.
At 5:30 the site closed, we said goodbye to our guide, who lived near at hand, and spent nearly two hours in wall-to-wall traffic before Narayan got us home and bade us farewell until 7:15 the next morning.
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