After a long bus and metro ride, we're back in Delhi.

The first hotel we went for wasn't available, so we poked our head into a nearby hostel. Turned out to be a great choice. It was one of those hostels where everyone was really cool with each other, and the owners went out of their way to make people feel welcome. Also free breakfast. That's a plus.

The first day was a trip to Bangla Sahib Gurudwara. A Sikh temple, they had a museum that went through a bit of history of the religion. And honestly, the more and more I learn about Sikhism the more I like it. They seem to be a really tolerant, peaceful group that goes out of its way to protect any other group or religion from any sort of injustice. They're also incredibly welcoming, giving free meals if you want. We just walked around and took photos, but we did enjoy their 5rs (just a few cents!) cups of coffee. Really beautiful temple, full of people who wanted to take pictures with us and be super cool.

On the way to the next stop we saw a Catholic church. Nice, but nothing too special. However its quiet was such a stark contrast compared to the Sikh temple we just came from. We pressed on to Lakshmi Narayan, a rather nice Hindu temple. Full of color, statues, and lights, it's small but pretty cool. They took your phones on entry, so I don't have a photo except for the outside. Also, they said it was free, but when retrieving your phones the attendant asked for a donation, a bit forcefully. I don't think you know what "donation" means. Welcoming religion, indeed.

We went to the National Museum next, which I usually enjoy when visiting a new country. The museum was a bit dated, but came with a really nice audio guide that contained an overwhelming amount of stuff. So much so Ella and I got sort of worn out and skipped through the end, only stopping to see the highlights. Also we were on the way to meet our friend Amit near the center of town. He took us shopping around the city, answered my silly questions about India, and eventually we ended up at a festival. This was one of my favorite experiences in India so far, as it was full of families, food, and a local band. I would have been comfortable to stay there for the rest of the night, but Amit had plans to take us to a restaurant back near the old part of town. I'll save food specific comments for the next blog, but this restaurant's head chef is descended from chefs who cooked for the Mughal Emperors during their reign. A lot of mutton, they even had an option on the menu to eat a whole goat. (with 24 hours notice). It was tucked in a tiny alley where you really needed to be a local to even know about it. After we went out to get sweets at a local joint before heading home.

The next day was New Year's Eve, but with only a few days left we still had a full agenda. The first stop was to Ugrasen Ki Baoli. It's basically a big hole. It used to be a step well containing the city's water supply, and now just is a neat looking place for photos. There were a few people taking wedding photos, along with two playful cats. So, Ella was happy. After that we zipped off to Purana Qila. At 100rs to go inside, it's a little expensive for something that is basically a park. It had a few ruins, including an old bath house, but overall it doesn't offer anything special.

The next stop was Humayun's Tomb, another Mughal royal who decided to bury himself in spectacular fashion. It basically looks like the Taj Mahal, but significantly less impressive. In fact, for 500rs, I felt it was a bit of a ripoff because it's a less pretty Taj. Good to see if you haven't been to Agra, but otherwise it's worth a miss.

We were pretty tired of ruins by now, as well as really hungry. Ella wanted to do some souvenir shopping, and one of the markets supposedly good for that was nearby. Khan (Khaaaaaaaaan!) Market is really cool, and looks more European than Asian. It's a series of small, pedestrian only alleys full of coffee shops, bistros, and tiny shops selling kitchy things. We picked up a few things before heading to the last tourist attraction of the evening, the Lotus Temple. The Lotus Temple is probably as close as you can get to the symbol of Delhi, not unlike Wat Arun of Bangkok or The Merlion of Singapore. It's actually a temple for the Baha'i religion, which I've heard of but really didn't know anything about. As seems to be the trend for India, it's really inclusive and says "Okay, all religions are correct. All the gods from Christian, Islam, Hindu, whatever are just all messengers of the same god." A bit of a mess to get inside with all the people, but they invited you to stay as long as you'd like no matter what faith you are - just not to disturb people by taking photos of the inside. The outside is really the draw anyway, although it did have some interesting architecture. If you're desperate for a description, it's just an open room with pews all facing towards a podium in the front. High glass walls and archways made it look sort of a modern Catholic church, but overall was a pretty nice place.

Whew! Now getting to the end of this trip, we were starting to get really tired. However we (or at least I) knew that we would have to go out past midnight this evening for New Years, so we should take a rest. Back at the hostel, I met Steve, who stopped in Delhi for one night on his way to Bangkok. Funny how that works. Steve is from Chicago and actually a friend of KT, who maybe some of you may know? Anyway that evening we went out with the hostel to Haus Kaus village, a hip sort of place that I suppose is like the Khao San of Delhi.

Of course, traffic was nuts. With about 25 of us, taxis were out of the question. Thus, we took a bus that could bring us about halfway. I'm sure the locals thought "WTF is going on?" as 25 drunk foreigners suddenly piled on to this local bus, and then filed off maybe 2 km later. After that, it was another brisk walk to Haus Kaus village, which, man oh man, was a sea of people. I don't know how, but despite all odds we made it to the same bar as everyone else, with no one getting lost. The roof was fortunately quite nice and quiet, and we rang in the New Year with a small group from the hostel. People started hugging each other, and one very interesting guy with a beard gave me a big kiss. That was unexpected. But hey, certainly a far cry from the zero-fanfare New Year from the previous year in Qujing, China.

Now on the last day full day in India, we were amazingly not (really) hungover. We said goodbye to Steve, and hopefully will see him again the next time he passes through Bangkok. Still feeling very tired, we went to see Akshardham. A large... thing on the outskirts of Delhi, I'm not sure how to describe this place. It's like a Hindu theme park? The centerpiece is a large temple in the middle, which is just so super impressive, I would put it up there with the Taj Mahal in awe-inspireness. It's just so incredibly, intricately detailed, I've never seen anything like it before. Of course, there are no phones or cameras allowed in this place, and they are fucking serious. You have to empty everything out of your pockets and check your bags. Basically it's like the TSA, except competent. With only a wallet, we walked around and just enjoyed the place. It was immaculately clean, and overall people not taking photos everywhere was quite nice. People were chatting, it kept things moving, and made me think about how detrimental in some ways mobile phones have made our lives.

There are rides of sorts at this place, like a boat, a water show, and some other stuff. It wasn't that expensive, and even had the same price for locals and foreigners. Wow, three cheers for not being racist. Anyway, we didn't feel up to it so we got lunch instead. Lunch was incredibly cheap, at less than 100rs each. Although good, the real draw of this place was the main temple. The photos here are ones I found on the internet, because I really want everyone to see what I'm talking about. This place was really cool, and I would seriously put it up there with the Taj as a "must see" of India.

Heading back into town, Ella was not quite done souvenir shopping yet. We went to a handicraft sort of market called Dilli Haat, which had an entrance fee? What sort of market was this? I don't really know the point of an entrance fee, although it was only about a buck and a half. There were a few musical acts, but mostly it was kitchy stuff like in Khan Market. Except this was more handmade, very pretty sort of things you would put on your mantle. As you can expect this was not really for me, but I did appreciate the insane amount of time and effort some of the local artists put into what they were selling. The one thing there that got me excited is that I saw a restaurant was selling pineapple beer. I eagerly ran up to see what it was, and on the bottle "Non-Alcoholic" was written in small print on the bottom.

Talk about a fucking letdown.

There was only one place left on our list, and that was Qutab Minar. A large tower, it's often listed as one of Delhi's top attractions. However, reading more about it people online said you can't go up the tower. And you can finish the whole place in about 30 minutes. At 500rs a head, this seemed pretty expensive to me. When we got off at the metro station though, all the motivation I had to see it pretty much vanished. We emptied into a sea of people, for a reason unknown to me. I asked a guy there what was going on, and he said "New Year!!!" I guess there's a bar district around Qutab Minar, and I also guess Indians love celebrating the New Year even after it has passed. We instead went further down the line to meet Amit and Manmoot (probably spelling that wrong) at a mall. There the four of us went to Vapour, a brewpub that made their own beer on site. The beer was pretty decent, but we had a really awesome conversation that continued hours longer than I expected. We polished off four pitchers of beer during the course of the night, so by the end we were quite drunk. Somehow, we got back successfully.

The next, hungover morning, that was about it for India. We stopped at a local grocery store to pick up a few things, and then off to the airport. So overall, I like India. There seems to be a lot to do, and we only covered the smallest portion of the country. The people outside of Delhi are also super nice, and really seemed happy to have foreigners around. It was also cheap, cheap, cheap. It goes without saying, but the food was absolutely amazing. Really, Ella and I ate meat maybe twice out of the whole time we were there, and I didn't even miss it. If you want the world to have more vegetarians for whatever reason, just make Indian food more available.

As far as the bad stuff, people are super pushy. Especially in Delhi, but really everywhere, people touch and push a lot. I guess they see it as a necessity given the dense population, but if you are uncomfortable being touched, India is NOT for you. Speaking of the density, it can really be stifling at times. There are long lines everywhere, and just in general things seem stuffy. This is further compounded in Delhi, where the pollution is just awful. I heard it is the most polluted city in the world, and I believe it. You can see only a few hundred meters on a clear day, and whenever you blow your nose there's black bits in there. Gross. Still, the amazing food, sights, and (some) nice people made for a great time. I hope to be back, although next time we'll give the southern portion a try.