Sabarish

Finally getting around to writing something about my North india trip. This was my first visit to North India and I was very excited about the whole trip. Luckily it wasnt too hectic at work so managed to get a week off for the trip. The trip was largely religious and the prime intention was for my dad and his brothers to perform the necessary pujas at Varanasi, Gaya and Allahabad for our departed ancestors. 14 of us from our family went on the trip! The rest of the family left Bangalore earlier by train whereas I was to fly to Delhi and take a train from there to Varanasi, as I couldn’t get more leave from work.

Day 1 wasn’t much – just flew to New Delhi in the evening by Kingfisher Airlines ;) – and went to the Air Force Quarters where I was to stay (thanks to Deepti’s parents!).

First thing I did in Delhi was put all my gadgets (phone, mp3 player and camera batteries)for charging as the next day was going to be long and exciting on the Delhi City tour (also arranged for by Deepti’s dad)!!

Day 2 was largely on the tour bus, which went to all the tourist spots of old and new Delhi and I had a great time clicking away! Some of the places covered were Qutab Minar, India Gate, Red Fort, Raj Ghat, Lotus Temple, Birla Mandir, Rashtrapathi Bhavan, Parliament house, various museums, etc.

Qutab Minar (above and below)

Iron Pillar

Delhi obviously has a lot of historical and political significance and this was evident throughout the day. Visiting the Gandhi, Nehru, Indira, and other political leaders’ museums and reading about and seeing photos, items and places from the freedom struggle was all very moving. All these places I had only seen on TV and photos and it was great to finally be there and check out all these important places of our country, first hand.

Sculpture commemorating Gandhi’s Dandi March (above)

India Gate (above)

Drive past Red fort (above)

Raj Ghat (above and below)

Coming from Bangalore, the roads of Delhi were themselves a sight to see - clean and pothole free! The average small road was wider than the average main road in Bangalore! The area around the Parliament house and Rashtrapathi Bhavan was especially great to see and is probably the best place in the country.

Parliament house (above)

Awesome roads!

All in all Delhi was all that I thought it would be and more! One day was seriously not enough to see much of this great city and I need to come back again and stay here for longer and visit surrounding cities also.

In the evening I had to catch the Magadh express to Mughal Sarai, which was running late, and so got a chance to go to a cyber center near the staion, which luckily had a card reader so was able to transfer photos to my creative zen vision:m. This freeing up of memory cards would prove to be very helpful later in the trip as I face a major memory crisis.

Back at the station, the train finally arrived two hours late and I was finally on my way to Mughal Sarai and then to Kashi, the holiest city for Hindus and one of the oldest cities in the world. But next day started off on a bad note as I missed my station thanks to wrong info from a TTE, and ended up going to Buxar, some village in Bihar!

All that and more in future posts!

Check out photos from the whole trip, as and when I upload them, here.