By this weekend, we had almost
ticked everything off our Delhi bucket list. However, one of the places still
left to visit was the Akshardam Temple - the largest Mandir in India, which
would take our Mandir total up to five! So, bright and early on Sunday morning,
we set off.
We had heard this place described as
a cross between a temple and Disneyland, and as we got closer we started to see
why. The Mandir itself was a huge intricately carved structure, jutting out of
the skyline, and easily spottable from the metro platform. As we got closer, we
walked along the four lane road leading to the huge car-park by the temple and
started the procedure of entering the complex. Firstly, the only thing you
could really take in was money - no cameras (apologies for the lack of
pictures!), phones, USB sticks, food and so on... These all had to be deposited
at the cloakroom, but before that could be done, they took a picture of you
with all your valuables for security. After this you could eventually enter the
security checks, just to make sure you had left everything behind. We got the
most thorough of pat downs we had ever received...even more thorough than when
getting on an aeroplane! However, we were finally in!
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| The mandir from the metro platform |
With the Mandir still a little way
in the distance, we wandered through some of the gardens to where the
"exhibitions" were held. Slightly concerned by the size of the car
park, we thought we would do these first before you had to queue for too long
as the place filled up. There were three exhibitions that you had to go round
in order.
The temple was built in honour of
Swaminarayan, who within Swaminarayan Hinduism is regarded as an incarnation of
God on earth. The first exhibition involved walking through a series of halls,
where scenes using incredibly realistic and impressive robotic figures told
stories from his life. He was born in 1781, and aged just 11 he left home
barefoot, with no possessions and embarked on a seven year pilgrimage across
India as a yogi. This term refers to a practitioner of yoga and of meditation.
Along the way there are many stories of him meeting with people and imparting
his wisdom as well as performing miracles. He taught non-violence towards all
living creatures, love and compassion, forgiveness, peace and humility.
Wherever he went, he cared for the sick and served the poor. There are stories
such as him making peace with a lion that was terrorising a village - the lion
felt such love from Swaminarayan that he lay down and slept next to him like a
kitten! It was really good to learn a bit about this branch of Hinduism, and to
gain some understanding into the reason and religion behind the Mandir we were
about to visit.
The second exhibition was an
amazingly shot film about Swaminarayan, filmed recently in multiple beautiful
locations around India, with a cast of over 45,000 people! It is shown here in
the Mandir on Delhi’s only large format screen which was a whopping 85 by 65ft!
Thankfully, we were given English headphones so that we could follow the
dialogue. Before Swaminarayan’s death in 1830, he handed over leadership to his
two adopted nephews, and since then there has been a direct line of leaders up
until the current day. The current leader is Pramukh Swami Maharaj, the fifth
spiritual successor of Swaminarayan, and he appeared at the end of this film,
bringing the history right up to the modern day.
The final exhibition was a
theme-park style boat ride that took you around a history of India, including
sailing through a representation of the world’s first University - Takshashila,
which was in India. This apparently held the first ever conference on
embryology and was making important discoveries in the fields of physics. We
also discovered that chess was invented in India and saw representation of the
first ever Indian bazaar.
Feeling as though we had been taught
an awful lot in just a few hours, we emerged from the boat ride and finally
went off to explore the mandir. It is very hard to describe without photos, but
here are a few that you can see online.
The huge mandir is 141ft high and
356ft long and every single inch of it is covered in intricate carvings. It is
built from pink sandstone and white marble and has 234 pillars, nine domes and
over 20,000 murtis (statues of Hindu Gods) within the carvings. This all stands
on a huge plinth which has 148 elephants carved around it, all in different
positions and doing different things. Inside, everything was still carved and
the ornate ceilings were really breathtaking. The main shrine was of course to
Swaminarayan and consisted of a huge 11ft tall gold statue of him with
beautiful gold decorations surrounding the statue.
After walking around the mandir and
struggling to take in the sheer size and grandiosity of the building, we walked
through the lotus garden within the temple grounds to get to the gift shop.
This was the last theme-park like bit. Due to the ban on cameras, the only way
to get a photo of you at the mandir was to pose for their cameras which results
in a rather Photoshopped looking photo!
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| Our collected photo from the temple gift shop. |
The temple had taken a little longer
than we had expected, so by this point we were quite hungry! We headed to
another recommended restaurant, a little off the beaten track, to continue our
sampling of Delhi cuisine. We reckon that if medicine doesn’t work out, we
could become the people who write the food sections of travel guides..sounds
like the perfect job! We were also on a quest for the best butter chicken in
Delhi (it is very different here to the stuff you get in the UK – much
yummier!) and we had heard great things about the butter chicken here. We were
not disappointed. It was also the first time we found genuine Mango Lassi,
which was delicious, and we both agreed it was one of the best meals we have
had here so far!
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| Michaela with our feast! |
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| Emma with possibly, the world's best butter chicken! |
We also tried two new dishes for
desert. The first is called Ras Malai, which is a white ball with a texture
similar to a spongy mozzarella, but very sweet and served in a delicious cardemon
milk sauce. We later discovered that this is made by soaking paneer (a very
plain Indian cheese) in double cream for ages before adding in the cardemon and
milk! The other desert was Kulfi Falooda, a traditional Indian ice-cream made
with thickened almond milk and often flavoured with cardemon, pistachios and
other nuts, and served up with sweet noodles. Very refreshing and tasty!
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| Ras Malai and Kulfi Falooda |
Actually
walking anywhere after that meal proved quite difficult. However, we eventually
managed to drag ourselves down to Khan Market, a small market which contains
quite a lot of western clothes shops. However, if you ignore these and dive
down some of the smaller streets, you stumble across some brilliant little
Indian shops. One of our favourites was a shop selling handmade paper and
beautiful handmade cards. Another was selling handmade papier mache goods…these
really put the papier mache we did as children to shame! It is a traditional
Indian craft, most well known as being from Kashmir, but is found all over
India. They use it to make everything from Christmas decorations to jewelry to
furniture, and it is always beautifully decorated
Another jam packed day in Delhi!
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