After a crazy beginning of our stay in New Delhi (see previous post), we finally arrived at our hotel. The hotel did not look to bad from the outside, we thought. The neighbourhood itself, on the other hand, was not very pleasant. The time at this point was was around 9 am and we were looking very much forward to go straight to bed and sleep for 3-4 hours before doing some sightseeing. The check in time was at 1 pm, but we were hoping for an early check-in to take a shower and get some sleep. Of course, the receptionist told us our room was not ready, but shortly after, he told us that we could get an early check-in for a fee. Fine, we thought, it was not extremely expensive and we just wanted to get some sleep. We got to the room, and shortly noticed that the room we were assigned was of a much worse category than we had paid for. We paid twice as much just to get a better looking room, but in the end we were assigned a room of the worst category. However, we still wanted the early check in, so I had no intentions on going back to argue with the receptionist, although, I did not understand why we had to pay for an early check-in if we were downgraded.
Everything would be OK if the room would not have been completely disgusting. It was probably the dirtiest room I have ever slept in. I tried to hang some clothes in the closet but the hangers were so sticky that I decided to keep everything on top of my suitcase. The bed was also very hard and not comfortable at all. Luckily, we were so tired that in the end we did actually fall asleep for around 3 hours. At that point we were very happy that we still had not booked the same hotel for the way back, or another hotel in the same area: Mahipalpur. We only chose to stay in Mahipalpur because of the short distance to the airport, but we quickly understood that we should definitely stay somewhere far away from here on the way back.
After the 3 hours of sleep, as tired as we were, we still decided to go sightseeing. Of course, we decided not to do all the things that we had planned. Besides, it was already getting late so we did not have the time for it. My friend from Delhi gave me some advice on what to do on a one day trip in New Delhi, so we tried to stick to some of it. We decided to go to Qutub Minar, Humayun’s Tomb, Akshardam temple, India gate and Khan’s Market. Luckily, there was WiFi in the hotel so we could order an Uber to the first landmark without being scammed again.
Watching New Delhi through the window, I started to realise I had a completely different picture of India in my head. Nothing looked like the India that I was so in love with. I started wondering whether I had a completely false memory of India or whether Mumbai was just a much prettier and cleaner city. I actually think it is the last thing, although I can imagine that New Delhi also have some nicer looking areas. In every direction I looked, I saw dirt, people everywhere, homeless elderly sleeping on the pavements and cows wandering around, not to mention all the excessive honking! Everything was so unorganised and chaotic. The cow part is just to give a better image of how it looked, but personally I have nothing against this, because I think the cows make the country more exotic (in a positive way!). Another thing is that I remember India as being very colorful, however, because of the extreme amount of smog, this was not the case. The city looked rather sad and grey.
Qutub Minar
The first landmark we visited was Qutub Minar. We were lucky that there were not too many people at this time of the day and week. This Unesco landmark had many interesting monuments and should definitely be on the bucket list for everyone visiting Delhi. Of course, there were plenty of people wanting to take selfies with us; I assume it is because we were the only non-Indian tourists there and because we looked like giants compared to everyone else. I can imagine that some people might find this a bit overwhelming, but I personally found it quite cute, especially when young children would approach me to tell me compliments like “you look like a barbie doll!”. Ok, maybe looking like a barbie doll is not always seen as a compliment, but I still found it cute and I choose to believe that they meant well.
Humayun’s Tomb
The next landmark we visited was the Humayun’s Tomb. This was exactly how I imagined the Taj Mahal to look (until I later visited Taj Mahal and realised I was wrong!). I was positively surprised by the beautiful architecture and by how big the area was. If we would have had more time, we could have walked around the area for hours, but because our time was limited, we unfortunately had to go through everything as quickly as possible.
Akshardam Temple
The last landmark that we decided to visit was the Akshardam temple. We initially had planned to visit some other places too, but the time did not allow us to do so, and the Akshardam temple is open longer than most other landmarks. We took a rickshaw to the Akshardam temple, but we quickly found out that we were not allowed inside with our phones and cameras and had to deposit them. Once we saw the never ending line to the storage room, we simply gave up and decided that taking a photo from the outside would be sufficient for us. It would have taken us way too much time, and we were already extremely tired and hungry and dreamt of going back to the (disgusting) hotel room. The Akshardam Temple was beautiful from the outside, and I am pretty sure it is even more beautiful from the inside. I will definitely visit the Akshardam temple on my next visit to New Delhi when I will have more time.
India gate
We decided to take the rickshaw to the Khan Market and have something to eat there because we still hadn’t had any food since we left from our hotel. We wanted to eat somewhere nice, and not in Mahipalpur where our lovely hotel was located (no need for food poisoning on the first day of our trip!), so I imagined the Khan market to be the perfect place to do so. On the way to the Khan Market we stopped at the India Gate for some photos. The india gate is located in a park and is definitely a place worth to stop for some photos.
Khan Market
We arrived at the Khan Market and walked around a bit looking for the best restaurant before finally choosing one. This is more of a upscale “market” with some fancy restaurants and clothing stores. Most of the restaurants here were either Western or Fusion style, which was not really what we were looking for. This was our first day in India so we obviously wanted to eat something local. We managed to find a North Indian restaurant, called Punjab Grill and I must admit it was one of the better Indian meals that I have ever had. The restaurant was very nice with outdoor seating, great staff and most importantly: amazing food.
After the dinner, we took a rickshaw back to our wonderful hotel. The rickshaw driver asked us to pay 5-6 times more than what we paid to get there, but luckily, our bargaining skills had improved during this one and only day. I am sure we still overpaid a lot.
We went back to the hotel and slept until 3 am, because we had a plane to catch to the Andaman islands! Another sleepless night, but at least we had something good ahead of us and an amazing week on the beach to look forward to. As horrible as the hotel was, we were actually quite happy to be back in the room and sleep after a very chaotic and tiering day in the bustling city of New Delhi.
(More pictures to be added)
Anyah Mroz 