Day Five

BAM!

Today began with an hours sleep-in; we then decided that it'd be a good idea to get out of the house and absorb some culture. So, we joined Aditi's Subroto-Uncle and a UNESCO official in a guided tour of Humayan's Tomb and the surrounding complex. The tomb was gorgeous. The tour was fairly short because, to be honest, aside from the stunning architecture there's not much else around due to the fact that most of the main building is still under restoration. You walk past the ticket counter and there's a wall which has a 3m section of it knocked down and a path through the hole, and at this point you're half considering the fact that you might have come to the wrong place, but alas, a little way down a path and under a giant arch-come-building and BAM! There's Humayan's Tomb just sitting there with these gardens surrounding it. The building itself is huge - it covers 2 acres and that's not including the gardens.

Octagonal tomb in background

There is also a second tomb which we were allowed to see because we had an UNESCO official and a tour guide, who turns out to be one of the main guys working on the restoration of the Tomb, which in my opinion was better than Humayan's because it was more delicate. We walked through a wooden door and it looked like we'd walked onto a movie set; it was almost exactly what I would define as idyllic. The tomb was sitting 4 feet above a sunken garden with lush green grass and new trees just growing. Most of the tile work was gone/vandalised so all that really remained of the artwork of the building were the sculptured columns and arches.

After the interesting tour (during which Aditi and I were more entertained by the squirrels and the architecture than any of the facts and culture) we were given a driving tour of India Gate and Rashtrapati Bawan (Indian version of the White House). India Gate was awesome, it's a 42m tall archway which is a monument to the fallen Indian soldiers from WWI. Aside from the sheer scale of it and the emotional background, there's not much going on. To be honest, a good drive around the round-about surrounding it  is just as good. If you have a lot of time then I reckon it'd be a good place to picnic but unfortunately we didn't have time as we weren't completely in control of our plans at this point.


The car drove on until we reached what used to be called King's Way, which is basically this long road leading from India Gate to Rashtrapati Bawan. Either side of the road were grand buildings which were government offices and ministries. The main building itself is quite cool and the surrounding buildings house some pretty important people e.g. the head of the Indian Navy, Indian Air-force and the Prime Minister.



After seeing Rashtrapati Bawan, we had to go straight back to Gurgaon so we could pack our bags because we were spending the next couple of nights at Marisha's (Aditi's cousin). Got back to Gurgaon, packed all our stuff (including shoving a whole table into my suitcase (Side note from Aditi: Well that was the best sentence ever)) in about 30 minutes and hopped into the waiting car.


When we finally got to Marisha's after an hour in stop-start traffic we decided that food was more important than unpacking or sleeping. So we followed her to a cute little cafe/store and had some food (Side note from Aditi: So goooood. Also, they played Barbie Girl in midst of Bollywood hits and golden oldies. This place has my approval). I'm back at Marisha's now and we're just about to go off to bed because we've got to be up at 5am tomorrow for the Agra tour.

Just want to say a big thank-you to Aditi's Brinda-chachi and grandmum for putting up with Aditi and me (Aditi: We are not easy to put up with).