A Street in Old Delhi-Day7 Indian Holiday

A full day of sightseeing in Delhi today, which included The Fort with the biggest Mosque in India, shut needless to say because of the inauguration of a new Imam, Ghandi's Cremation site, the Presidents's Palace once inhabited by the Viceroy's of India during the Raj, and the World Heritage site of Humayun's tomb, which is a precursor to the Taj Mahal in Agra.

Lunch was a strategic one at an upmarket Kashmiri carpet showroom where the glasses of free beer were instrumental in lightening His Lordship's wallet by the cost of two wall hangings for the Dower House.

The highlight for me, a philistine when it comes to trudging round cultural sites with a fair proportion of India's population, was the rickshaw ride round the streets of the bazaar area of Old Delhi. It was a bumpy ride in passageways just twice the width of a rickshaw and narrowed by pedestrians, people on scooters and men hauling carts of goods. It was reminiscent of the souks in Oman and the bazaar in Cairo.
There were cages of live chickens, goats tethered for religious slaughter, a bone setter sitting under a tree beside a barber, fruit stalls colourful with exotic fruit and shops full of bright cotton goods.

At the heritage sites, there were crocodiles of children in neat school uniform greeting us as we passed with huge smiles and not a hint of cheekiness or impudence that one might expect from teenagers in Britain.

We are getting used to the amount of humanity everywhere, and are deeply impressed with the friendliness of everyone, but distressed by the poverty of many.
As we returned home on the coach and were stopped at traffic lights, there were two children, probably about 7 or 8, dodging the traffic to sell trinkets to the drivers of stopped cars- a very sad sight in comparison to the well turned out school pupils of earlier.