Day 2 : Delhi again

After a hectic first day, we almost dozed off the next day. The schedule for the day was to cover Akshardham Temple,do some shopping around and eat lots of local food. We woke up quite late with our legs being pounded over walking the Delhi streets. With the sun coming out, making life a bit comfortable after chilling night, we started out for the local Naashtha in the streets of Karol Bagh. We walked in the entire area to find something authentic breakfast. With the help of local people we learnt that people there generally prefer Samosas, jalebis,Poori, chole bhature and Kachori as the breakfast. We went on with the theory that we followed - "The more crowded the places, better to try out". Watching so many people at a place, we ended up at a small shop on the streets which had these awesome Chole Bhature. And really the taste was very very good. Never i had such Bhature in Bangalore. We then decided to try out another local stuff - the kulfi. We were suggested to go out to Roshan Di Kulfi. The place was a big sweet stall. We had the special kulfi there. I would call that as a bit more decorated kulfi. However, the quality of the kulfi was too good.

Once we had our tummy filled, we headed out to the first destination. Again thanks to the delhi metro. We had our ride to Akshardham Temple (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akshardham_(Delhi) ) in a cycle rikshaw from the metro station. We could see the huge temple rite from the highway. Once we reached there, we were really impressed with the system in place. Everything was perfect right from the cloak to the security check. We entered the temple and then everything over there was just too too unimaginable. You got to visit this place to really check out the things inside. Be it the main diety, the impressive architecture or the outer lawns, fountain and gardens. The temple construction is really really impressive. We also watched out an hour long movie regarding Bhagwan Swami Narayan. The entrie temple took us almost the day to cover with. Once done with it, we had plans of going out shopping some winter clothes. We went over to another really really crowded place-   Sarojini Market. Ufff, this was the response watching the crowd. Being a Sunday, it was flooded with people. We just went on watching everything there. One of the impressive stuff that I noticed was the way the salespersons along the footpath attracted the attention of the passers. Finding difficult to move, we finally decided to step off the market place. By this time we were getting late and decided to shop around in Karol Bagh. We came off to Karol bagh market and finally picked out two jackets, pair of woolen socks and glows. We tried out the famous Aloo Tikki which was too spicy. And also the Fruit Chat and Kachoris, something prepared in a different way. With the food and the shopping, we were back to the room ending our quite uninteresting day. 

Unknown Journey - Day 1 ( Hamari Dillii )..!!

Past couple of months have been quite relaxing and also stressful in my life. Relaxing because I had quit the job and stressful cos I din't know what I was gonna do. Time just ran off since last 4 months. It was this Feb 2013 when I had started feeling the heat of sitting Idle. But I had quit my job thinking that I needed to do something unusual. And did nothing :P . A crazy friend of mine too was like me but not idle. Then came up a thought in my mind to just shoot off to experience North Indian winter. A crazy idea which my friend Hemanth always backed up. Just spent a day browsing all options to visit Nepal, himachal, J & K and what not. Ultimately it was going to be similar to all our plans since last 6 years - "End up going nowhere". It was 6th Feb where I thought of booking tickets for delhi. N lucky enough to get 2 tickets.  I felt bad that I had not formally asked other friends (baal vk dev BR and Dhobs) as I had assumed that it would be really difficult for them to take of from their schedule. By the time we left Bangalore, we had a rough Idea of regions where we were heading to. But neither the places nor the things that we were up to. We had a destination in our mind - AULI(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auli). 

Day 1 - Surprisingly Religious: 

The day 1 of the journey was in the train. The journey was boring but not very tiring. We met few other travelers who helped us in planning out the first two days of our tour. In fact we had written down the places to go and had a Android Delhi Metro app with us, which really helped us in the later part. They were baffled when they got to know we just came off without a concrete plan of travel. The food in Rajdhani kept on coming regularly through out the day(wasn't great in taste) and we somehow managed to spend the rest of the journey looking around magazines and newspapers. We got down at Delhi and began our hunt for a cheap place to stay. As per our guide(written booklet) we had to reach Karol Bagh or connaught place or Pahar Jung. We headed to karol bagh expecting cheap rooms. We found many hotels. But all way over the budget. The places that we had in our budget were totally pithy. Finally after an hour in Karol bagh we settled our for a hotel for 800 bucks. 

After freshening up, we set out for the long day ahead. The metro prepaid card (300bucks for 3 days) was a real worthy one. I suggest that to people who plan to travel in delhi metro. Our first destination was Rajeev Chowk. getting down there we walked out to connaught place(CP). Felt good checking out Palika Bazaar and Central Park. We walked across around 2kms to a Gurudwara - which was named Bangla Sahib (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurudwara_Bangla_Sahib). I had visited gurudwara in Bangalore. But this was different. it was Hemanth's first visit. A great experience for us. We went around the Gurudwara, walked across the pond which had lots of fishes. Hemant began testing his skills with this SLR - a shutterbug. We were moved by the community service attitude of the Sikh people. Walking out we visited a church nearby (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_Heart_Cathedral,_New_Delhi) which was supposed to have a wedding in progress as per the board outside. Excited that we would witness a Christian wedding we went in only to find that there was nobody inside. After the church we went looking out for some Kali temple(which was in our itenarary). Asking local people for navigation we walked around 3km more but ending up nowhere. What we saw was a small Buddhist monastry there. Hoping to get some information about other monastries in Northeastern part we went there. To our surprise we found nobody in the monastry. Just prayed and got out to find a Hindu temple at a walking distance. We thought it is the Kali temple which we were looking for but later got to know it was the famous Birla Temple(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laxminarayan_Temple) . Tired already of walking around 5kms we were onto our next destination. It was the so called Jantar Mantar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jantar_Mantar,_Delhi). We knew that it was an astronomical observatory. But it is impossible to understand the structures. Unlike us, people were very happy either having pics clicked in front of beautiful structures built by Maharaja Jai Singh or couples spending time on the lawn. I remember Hemanth climbing on one of the instruments which was closed down. Unable to have a clue about it we hired a so called Guide who blabbered the usual history stuff. He was really not able to convincingly answer out questions and drew out 100 bucks. 

With half day passing out and we walking so much which I never did since 4 months, we were starving. One good thing we had decided was to try out all the Delhi delicacies. And thanks to the girl (never bothered asked her name) in train who had given out a list of stuff to try out. We had heard a lot about the place Chandni Chowk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandni_Chowk) in the movies. We headed straight to it again using the Metro. Just a perfect place for Ladies to shop out beads and other girly stuff. It was crowded like anything. We went in search of Parathe Wali Galli (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranthe_wali_Gali) -  A small galli which reminded me of the V V Puram food street with the exception that this was a really really small Galli and had only paratha shops. It was very teasing as it was a weekend and all the paratha shops were crowded. Acting on the advice of the train girl - "Always go to a place which is more crowded", we lined up in a queue for our turn. It was a amazing feeling to see that such a small place had so much energy. There was literally no distinction between the queue we stood and the passers nearby. Finally after about 20mins it was our turn to feast. There was a host of options for the Paratha stuffing. The parathas were not baked on the pan, rather they were put into oil as pooris. Overall it was'nt the taste that impressed us but the ambiance after all the parathas were too costly. Right opp to this was a Lassi shop. This is the best thing that we found there in the street. Awesome Lassis and mind you, never miss incase you visit here. After our food we started exploring the streets within Chandni Chowk. We were shocked to see the electric poles there. Countless wires poked out of each pole. It reminded me off a FB joke of applying Kirchoff law to one such point (Exact pic in the link) (http://pr3rna.wordpress.com/2007/06/15/please-solve-this/). Very crowded place and let me tell you, it is filled with shops (mainly beads) and people. The narrow streets and the cycle rickshaws make life horrible. Hemanth as always pulled me from street to street. We were literally walking across Old Delhi residences and we ended up in a palce where were could'nt trace back the entry route. By this time I was sure that we had atleast walked almost 8-9Kms (hemanth may nt agree :P ). We took out to another street which had just Camera shops. It was A to Z off Cameras (Digital, SLR and CCTV). Hemanth was a bit on a sober side when he found out that his cam was available for around 4000bucks lesser there than what he had paid. We moved on walking across to the amazing huge RED FORT (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Fort). 

Frankly telling we were exhausted when we reached there. We Just sat across this huge structure for about half n hour gazing as troops of pigeons came in and flew across the fort. We decided not to approach any guide and to our luck we came across Audio Guide available in all languages for 100rps. Trust me this was the best part of the day. This audio guide includes a device with earphones and also a map marked which will take you across the place covering out everything. We really really enjoyed the tour and the impressive history associated with it. It is highly recommended to take audio guide where ever possible. We also got to know that it is available as a mobile app in Android and iPhone market. It was almost 7 when we came out of the fort. N just the temperature started dropping down below 15'C. Then on the final place for the day - INDIA GATE. The iconic structure was illuminated with lights. As we went closer, we could find the names of martyrs carved on the walls of the India Gate. As it was a weekend, we could find lots of people hanging out. A long way back to the Secretariate metro station followed that. It was chilling cold out there and we were really not used to it. As we walked we could see the Rashtrapathi Bhavan from a distance of 3Kms. We din't have courage to walk more. We took off the metro again and came back to Karol Bagh. The buzzing Karol Bagh market was settling out for the day. We had dinner at some Punjabi Corner (recommended by that train gal again) where I found the food pathetic. And more over the shock was that the wash basin was located 2 floors above the restaurant :O . We came back to hotel and that's when my legs thanked me. Overall a mixed day and the only thing that really really lifted our spirits were Metro stations, a reason that Hemanth knows ;) .