Good morning, Delhi! Voices in the street, horns beeping, and random music greeted us on waking - as well as through the night. This is India.
We ventured to the Lajpat Nagar Station and found our way to Akshardham Station where we bumped into some other Westerners who were also heading to Swaminarayan Akshardham, which rated among the top ten tourist sites in New Delhi and is the world's largest Hindu temple.
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| Fan tailed pigeons and chickens in a pet bird yard. |
The security was intense: no bags, no mobile devices, no cameras, no food and so the list went on. I lined up in the long cloak room key and deposited our gear - quite freeing really not to carry a backpack but a pity not to be able to photograph anything.
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| Outside...looking cosy with layers to cope with 5 C temperature. |
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| From the outside |
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| The Mandir from outside, in evening fog. |
We ate some delicious Indian food : vegie burger, pilao rice and samosas before going through to the main area. Luke made an incredible fuss (not unusual) about the spicy food and had
to contend with a bit of plain yoghurt. As we had no camera at this
stage, we couldn't take pictures of the food.
Swaminarayan Akshardham is AMAZING. It is set on 100 acres and is a series of pink sandstone buildings intricately carved with designs of peacocks (India's national animal), elephants, and avatars and goddesses. The kids were intrigued which is saying something.
We explored the 22 acres of Cultural Garden which displays 65 bronze statues of the famous men and women of India, including Mahatma Ghandi. From here the Mandir can be seen looming over the precinct - a huge temple with carved sandstone walls and roof resting on Gajendra Peeth, a base of carved elephants in all sorts of positions. It was built over 5 years and finished in 2005.
We decided to go on the tours offered through the Hall of Values and through a well done robotic presentation about Neelkanth Varni (a 11 year old child yogi) and then on a boat ride depicting 10000 years of Indian culture which reminded Karl and me of the Small Small World boat ride at Disney World. All that (and a bit of propaganda) for 170 Rupee each (about $3.50AUD).
Time for more food! Vegetarian pizzas, black forest cake (too sweet), popcorn and over sweet coffee. We also discovered some sensational ice cream with wonderful flavours such as dried Afghan fruit which I had in a waffle cone for under $1 AUD.
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| 2010 Commonwealth Games village from the station (in the fog) |
We walked back to the station where I was reprimanded by a local vigilante for taking a photo of Luke at the station...whoops - you live and learn!
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| You should have heard the fuss when a local vigilante told me no photos were permitted! |
Pranndeep, our airbnb host here, came to see how things are going. It was great to meet him. He is happy to please and we really didn't want to complain about too much but mentioned a few of the problems here such as door handles falling off and leaking pipes!!
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