I can't wait for the full report, sure to be a good read with lots of useful information.
best wishes lassi

so far so good

looking forward to the rest of the report, we know you are busy but keep it coming

Great start

Thanks for the positive feedback
Our first stop was the Lakshmi Narayan Mandir- this is a beautiful temple and one that Mahatma Gandhi visited. Have a look here for an idea of what it looks like. Neither of us would claim to be religious but I am absolutely fascinated in finding out what others believe in. The one thing that hit us when we visited this temple was the prominence of the swastika symbol. This is the second most important religious symbol in the Hindu religion( after OM) and apparently stands for 'let good prevail'. It's a shame that we now associate the symbol with anything but good.
Our next stop was Qutb Minar, which is a world heritage monument. More info and some photos can be found here. Entrance fee is 25r for Indians and 250r for foreigners. As it happens we left this site £50 better off! As we entered we were approached by someone claiming to be a director and asking if we would mind helping out as an extra in his film- it would only take half an hour and we would get 50 dollars. I was astounded to hear my OH agreeing and put it down to severe jet lag! He told me later that he just wanted to see what the s c a m was. We climbed the steps to see.. cameras all over the place, lights and hundreds of onlookers. We then found out that it was just going to be us two and the two stars in the scene. We sat on a wall for a while as the stars were sorted out and were offered food and drink. The hundreds of onlookers all studied us, no doubt wondering who we were and maybe coming to the conclusion that we were two stars from Big Brother. From time to time they were pushed back by the heavies.
The story was that the male star was impressing the female by scribbling all over the monument and we had to walk past and "stare disapprovingly" and shake our heads. This took 6 takes as the stars kept fluffing it. We then got to sit under the directors tent( with me sitting on the directors chair!) while they finalised things. I was introduced to the hero of the film- a young boy who puts an end to everyone scribbling all over Indias monuments. At this point the director( Bunty) gave us 50 dollars each and we had to have heaps of photos taken. We then got 5 mins to see round the site before rushing back to Ramesh. We did tell him we had been starring in a film but he just smiled indulgently and probably put the whole story down to us hallucinating due to severe jet lag! By the way, we donated our fees to Children Walking Tall in Goa.

Fantastic!!!!!!!!!!! what an experience!! great report so far cant wait for the Goa bit!!
Chilly

Lovin' this report Fi.....awaiting the next instalment. Was it a movie that you "STARRED" in or a Public Information Film, either way I'll be keeping a look out for you on TV here!!

GFF xx

it was one from the Tourist Board. We saw one of the series when we were there.

Can I have your autograph before you become to famous

Brillian report Fiona, can't wait for the next instalment !!

Brill fiona your report is fab I love the way you can click on the wee blue bits and it takes you to the photos I hope to go and see those places too ...that was very kind of you and hubby to give the money to CWT.....will you please write somemore I keep coming in to see if you have added more to your report ........COME ON .....hurry up .....colleen

colleen
I do have a full time job to do inbetween

We couldn't bask in glory for too long as we only had one day in Delhi! Our next stop was the Lotus Temple-a beautiful building. We seemed to be amongst thousands who were also wanting to visit it. Sunday was Eid in India. I have no idea if that is why so many were at the Lotus temple as I don't know anything about the Baha i religion I'm afraid. You can see a photo of it here. Here is a photo we took of the crowds. (by the way, I'm in there!)
Our next stop was Hamayuns Tomb. The architecture is said to have been an inspiration for several later monuments- the most famous being the Taj Mahal. You can see why in my photos in the Delhi albumhere.Humayun was the second Moghul emperor. The complex is pretty large and has several other tombs and a mosque. We spent a while there wandering around.
Our next stop was India Gate. This is a popular meeting point for locals in the late afternoon and there loads of things going on- particularly for families. I enjoyed strolling amongst them all. We had been on the go for 5 hours now- not bad considering we had been travelling the entire night beforehand. We headed back to the hotel. We had only a bit of a taster of Delhi and have so much more yet to see. I'm pretty certain we will be back sometime though

This is great Fiona, waiting on the next bit now .....

Could that be the back of your head in the foreground of the photo Fiona ? , now I will have to wait till Monday to read the rest , as I am away for a few days and no HT allowed.

yes- thats right- those are my best photos

But when I get back I am looking forward to the photo at the Taj Mahal, and not the back of your head

Namaste India Tours don't accept payment by credit card or cheque so you pay when you arrive. We met with Jawahar early in the evening and were able to pay in sterling to the tune of £358. Jawahar was to keep in constant touch with us during our tour to ensure things were going smoothly. We had been planning to go to Connaught Place- which looks very like the terraces in Bath. There are many restaurants there. He recommended Cafe 100. Then we found out that Ramesh was outside waiting to take us where-ever we wanted to go. And would wait for us until we needed to return. As he was there already we took the lift but told Ramesh that we would make our own way back. Poor soul- I suppose he often has to spend hours waiting for people. Our trip home cost us 50r- about 60pence with a tip- mind you that was by autorickshaw- an adventure on its own!! Cafe 100- when we came across it we both decided we had misheard Jawahar as it looked just like any ordinary cafe, and this was amongst some quite posh looking places. However, we decided to trust him and gave it a go. It was a good call. I had Rogan Josh- which tasted nothing like the British version and was just lovely. OH had tandoori chicken. With rice,rotis and 4 drinks the total cost was £12. We thought this was really cheap- but we hadn't been to Goa then!!
Back at the hotel we opened the duty free and had a couple of drinks before bed. There was no minibar but room service was cheap. In total we got 4 bottles of coke, 2 teas and a large beer and the bill came to £1.50.
We had an early start in the morning- 8am( but we would be a lot earlier in other mornings!). We had breakfast in the breakfast room in the basement. This was fairly basic but good enough.
One impression of Delhi was that it was a lot greener than I had expected. Perhaps this was because it was not long after the monsoon season had finished. On our way out of Delhi we came across the Delhi version of a bus queue- 500 people crowding most of the dual carriageway, running after anything with an engine. Ramesh told us that the month before 1000 private buses were banned from the roads and they only had public transport to rely on, meaning that most people struggled to get to work. A lot of the work is in estates on the edge of Delhi, quite a bit out. Many were walking and it must have taken some hours to get there. We also came across one military establishment after another on the outskirts. India has the second biggest army in the world and that was much in evidence. This was a reminder of the constant tensions there are there. We moved on to the region of Rajasthan and were 5 hours of travel away from Jaipur. Rajasthan proved to be quite different.

Really loving your report