Chilling in “New Delhi” India

During our travels through India/Nepal we found ourselves with an entire day to burn in the capital city of Delhi. We had just arrived via a short flight from Kathmandu and were scheduled to take a night train to the city of Varanasi. About a week earlier we had already spent some time in Delhi but had focused our time on the exciting and busy section of the city known as Old Delhi. This time we were excited to see the wide streets, organized layout and beautiful monuments of “New Delhi” (which was designed by the British). We took a cab from the airport to the Red Fort and from their worked our way to the brand new, and incredibly efficient, metro system and took it to the heart of New Delhi. We came out of the metro near the beautiful Secretariat complex which is a group of government buildings designed in very strong classic architecture (looks very much like government buildings in Washington DC, etc). We enjoyed the view of these buildings for a few minutes and then wandered the beautiful park complex nearby. There were large trees, ponds and open patches of grass which is not something you see everyday in a busy Indian city. We set up shop underneath a tree and simply laid on our backpacks and read, laughed and relaxed. After a few hours we negotiated with a rickshaw driver to drive us down the road to the beautiful India Gate monument. Our rickshaw driver kept telling us that “it was his birthday” which was for sure a ploy to get more money from us. However, I appreciated is ingenuity so we gave him a good price for taking us the short distance. :) The India Gate monument is a beautiful large archway made of golden stone. It is a spectacular structure and looked beautiful as the late evening sun was shining on it. We were just starting to enjoy it when we began to be annoyed by the numerous touts walking around. We were constantly being asked if we wanted to buy something and it was just exhausting. One particular lady came up with little flags of India and said that they were for “the poor school children.” We knew it was a scam and when we said “no” she said “let me at least pin this on you for free.” Because we were too burned out to resist we let her do this and sure enough the minute she pinned it to my shirt she began forcefully asking for money…the worst kind of tout. :) Despite the touts we were able to enjoy the beautiful monument and by that time we were getting hungry. We decided to splurge a little and hit up the Parikrama revolving restaurant that sits atop an office building in the heart of New Delhi. This restaurant is nearby Connaught Place which is an area full of shops, restaurants, etc. The restaurant itself was beautiful and it was so nice to relax, eat some good food and watch the beautiful city of Delhi unfold in front of us. The only thing interrupting us was the occasional loud burp from the Indian businessmen nearby (this is totally accepted in India and is quite amusing). We ate and drank as slowly as we could as we were loving the experience. After at least one full rotation of the restaurant we left and headed towards the chaotic train station to catch our night train to Varanasi. It ended up being a wonderful and relaxing day in New Delhi that we will never forget.