There is a restaurant in the guide book
which is reviewed so highly that we had to check it out. It was a South Indian restaurant,
meaning that the use of coconut in the food is reasonably prevalent. For those
of you who don't know, Emma is allergic to coconut, but it looked so good we
decided it was worth the risk, and armed with epipens we went to investigate!
The restaurant served up thali, which is basically,
the Indian equivalent of tapas. You get some form of carbohydrate, in our case
rice, a poppadom, poori (puffed up spheres of pancakey dough) and dosai. These
are then served up with lots of small portions of various curries, chutneys and
vegetable dishes. We ordered what we were told was the amount of food for two
people and enough to feed a small army arrived! All this food cost less that
£3!
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| All the food! |
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| Slowly demolishing the food...or attempting to! |
We had been told on asking that dosai were pancakes...what
they should have said was that they are pancakes the size of a small toddler,
as this is what turned up!
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| I'm sure someone once told me never to eat food bigger than your face... |
The food was
really amazing - and we ate as much as humanly possible before struggling to
walk out to go to our next stop! And Emma got away with just a slight allergic reaction
(no epipen required!), so all in all a successful trip!
From here we
went along to a temple close by called Hanuman Mandir. A Mandir is a Hindu
temple, and as we approached, taking our shoes off as we did so, we saw
countless people doing henna (temporary inked patterns painted on the skin), stalls
selling strings of marigolds and oil lamps for offerings and many people just
hanging around outside the temple.
It was a really
interesting place inside - neutral coloured carvings in wood and marble were
over the doors, which was in stark contrast to the arches and walls with
vividly coloured murtis (statues) of Gods, broken fairy lights and plastic
screens around the shrines. The whole place was a maze of shrines, and people
would come in and have their own order of going around the temple, ringing the
bell as they entered the Mandir, and making offerings at the shrines. It was a
real privilege to be able to see people practising the rituals and ceremonies
of their religion. It was a very calming place, and slowly wondering round it
in our socks was a very peaceful and pleasant experience.
Outside the
Mandir is known for selling glass bangles, and we went into one of the stalls
to admire just how sparkly everything was! After much browsing and trying on of
different bangles we eventually got a few, and as a result we were both covered
in glitter for the rest of the day!
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| Sparkles everywhere in the bangle stall. |
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| More bangles! |
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| The bangles we finally came away with...everything we touched was left covered in glitter! |
One afternoon a
few days later the sun was beaming down, and as there were a few hours of
sunshine left after work we decided to make the most of it. After consulting
our maps we spotted that there was a park not far from the hospital. The
tuk-tuk driver had no clue where this park was, but after producing a map and a
conversation involving gestures and several other tuk-tuk drivers pitching in
with where they thought it was, we set off in what we hoped was the right
direction!
We did actually
get there, and like all parks we have been into in Delhi so far there was a
ruined tomb as we entered the garden. We wandered around, past the dozens of
cricket matches going on and many huddles of elderly men sat around playing
card games. We couldn't work out what card game it was - it wasn't one that we
recognised, but here was clearly the place to do it! We also walked past a
group of older women sat on the grass, with one woman sat on a rock at the
front and the others in a semicircle around her, all singing together to the
beat of a drum. We didn't know the reason behind it but it was very pretty to
listen to!
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| The ruined tomb in the gardens. |
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| From inside the tomb looking through to the gardens. |
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| Some of the countless cricket matches underway! |
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| All the card games going on in one part of the gardens. |
We found
ourselves a lovely sunny spot by some palm trees and sat there reading
(Michaela) and sewing (Emma), enjoying the sun and a rare calm day not running
around between 10 different sites! Sorry for any of you currently experiencing
rain/cold...
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| Michaela reading in the sun. |
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| Emma doing a spot of sewing. |
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| Palm trees, sun and blue skies! This is Indian winter for you! |
