10th Nov SUN: Raj Ghat (Gandhis Memorial) and Dilly Haat

Raj Ghat is a memorial to Mahatma Gandhi, situated in the place where he was cremated after his assassination in 1948.

 Built in black marble and surrounded by lawns where an eternal flame burns, it is a popular pilgrimage spot for locals and tourists who visit to pay homage to the 'Father of the Nation'.

We stood at the raised viewing point for nigh on 20 minutes trying to photograph the memorial without hordes of people taking selfies/group photos etc., It was very frustrating as every time one family/group moved away another stepped in but we got there eventually.

Then once we got down to 'floor level' we realised shoes had to be removed to go closer to the memorial.   David opted to stay put whilst I went and took a couple of pictures.

Gandhi can't be accused of being a man of few words …. the park was full of boards showing some of his quotes … these are just a few (David got bored and wanted to leave the park once we'd seen and finally photographed the memorial).

David was really keen for me to take a photo of this one …. he reckons it sums up FB and social media perfectly (unfortunately)

The park is beautifully maintained and very peaceful with plenty of trees, flowers squirrels and birds around.

The large lily pond was full of blooms but they were just beginning to open up and (of course) they all faced away from me

So cute …. 

 There must be plenty of fish in the lily pond to tempt these two

As we waited for our Uber taxi we were waylaid by an armed policeman who asked if we'd pose for photos with a group of young lads.   Then when out car arrived we noticed the driver also took a sneaky selfie with us in the background!    First time that's happened since we got to Delhi.

From Raj Ghat we went on to the National Railway Museum as a treat for David .... Bless!

As it was my turn to be bored(!) I simply took photo after photo … its an impressive collection with more than 100 exhibits going back 160 years and what was fascinating was how much stock was built in the United Kingdom.

I've made a separate post for the Railway Museum so if you don't like trains you can just skip the post


Early evening we headed out to  the Dilli Haat which is billed as an undercover craft and food market run by the Tourist and Transportation Development Corporation so basically its Government sanctioned.   

Our tour guide on Friday evening said its a good place to look at the work of local artisans without getting hassled.   Prices are fixed and standards are higher than many of the old fashioned bazaars. That's the theory anyway.   In reality we found that most stalls didn't show prices on their wares and really the products seems almost the same as you'd see in any other bazaar, albeit in cleaner more 'gentile' surroundings.    Some of the stalls were undercover and the rest were open air so I guess its grown a lot since its concept.

There was an entry fee to pay to enter the Haat and, as usual in India, Indians get in for next to nothing but 'foreigners' pay a higher amount.    It tit for tat and I understand stems from the time our wonderful UK Government hiked up tuition fees for Indian students.   So at any major tourist attraction there are several price bands - Indians and Foreigners being the main ones.


Each Indian State has its own food stall there so you can sample cuisine from around the country.  

We decided to have a couple of snacks rather than a proper meal this evening and found a restaurant offering the kind of thing we wanted.    The menu was bought out to us and I tried to order but the waiter just muttered vaguely and wandered off.   He was darting around serving all the Indian customers so after 15 minutes I called him across and made him take our order for 2 snacks (to share) and two cups of Masala Chai.   He came back and said the chai would take 10 mins ... ok that was fine by us.    

After 20 minutes we still had no food or drinks so I caught the eye of the boss man and he sent the waiter over to say 2 more minutes and our food would arrive.    And it did, one dish first of all then the second.   We finished both of those and David went to settle up and they were quite surprised to find we didn't want the Chai we'd ordered 50 minutes before.      The snacks were very filling and tasty though and the bill came to around £1.30 for the two of us as we had tapas size rather than main courses so we can't complain


These are the snacks we selected - thankfully there were photos and descriptions otherwise we'd have had no idea what to order.   These dishes are from the Odisha area of India - it used to be known as Orissa and is in the N.East of the country.

The accompanying dish, Ghuguni, is a lentil/pea type curry dish and came with a dish of coriander based spicy dip.

Vada

Singhara

There is a cultural show most evenings and I followed the music just in time to see what looked to be an interesting/clever balancing act on stage.   By the time I made my way gently (elbowed my way through the crowds) to the front that act finished and we had 15 minutes of stand up comedy (in Hindi) followed by a lacklustre dancing group.

I won't show all the photos as the place wasn't very different from the other markets we've visited but David did rather like this very tasteless mat he found on a rug stall!

David obviously wasn't enjoying walking around the Haat, so we caught the subway to Connaught Place - 6 stops on the air conditioned tube for just 20p each and looked for a bar.     We figured that as its the central meeting point for 'younger' people there was bound to be somewhere selling beer

We've not had wine since leaving England (unless you cound the 5% fizzy drink I had at lunch yesterday) and on most days not even a beer as its not on the menu in most of the restaurants and hotels we've visited.    

We found somewhere called 'House of Beer' which was very trendy.    They brew on site and make a feature of having all the brewing equipment/mash tuns/storage vats in the window area.     The main bar area was full so we were shown out to the back of the place which was open air but they had this irritating system blowing out scented smoke at 2 minute intervals - it was like being enveloped in somebody's vape trail.  The music was so loud we couldn't talk to each other.   David ordered porter for himself but it was served too cold for his taste ... he ordered something weird for me which was a light beer with a bitter orange flavour.    

It doesn't show up well, but these constant clouds of vapour were sprayed downwards into the seating area …. you'd think in Delhi they'd have had enough of haze and smog for the moment!

OK we're off to Varanasi in the morning but have had disappointing news.

We had hired a row boat (and oarsman) for 4 hours to take us up and down the Ganges on Tuesday evening so we could view/photograph the Dev Depawali Festival from the river.     But the water levels are still higher than normal due to the recent late Monsoon rains so row boats have been banned during the ceremony.     We'd deliberately not chosen a motor boat as we felt a row boat would be less invasive and more appropriate.   Only motor boats are now allowed on the river and they are all fully booked.

We'll have to review the situation when we get to Varanasi and have a word with the people at our hotel.