Laura Lab 3
Train
A few days before, carefully arrange transfers in Rishikesh and Delhi. I will create support pages for arrival at Delhi airport, okay?
Old Delhi.
Raj Ghat
We will begin our tours with what is actually one of several Delhis, which existed at different times and under different empires in a succession of neighboring cities. The last and eighth Delhi is where we stayed, built by the British, called New Delhi. The seventh was built by Shah Jahan, one of the great Mughal emperors, the same one who built the Taj Mahal, then known as Shajahanabad. Today we call it Old Delhi or Old Delhi. We will visit the Emperor's great mosque, the Jama Masjid. There, for those who want, there is the possibility of a walk up the minaret! From where we have a view of the city and the Red Fort from above. Talk to your guide. He doesn't need to go up and can keep his backpack (which can't go up the minaret, so it's always a good idea to have a padlock for it or not leave money in it). Just be very careful on the platform up there, please.
Then we'll walk through the alleys of its old bazaar. There is a very old shop, passed from father to son for a long time, selling essences (sandalwood, etc.) and incense called Gulab Singh Johri Mal, which in itself is a walk. You can buy an oil in a box along with one of the very typical bottles of this Muslim region of Delhi. Following the walk through the alleys of the bazaars, most guides like to do a bicycle rickshaw. We highly recommend that you do the walking tour, to have more contact and to be able to see the bazaar better. Possibility to visit a small Jain temple, very old, with beautiful paintings. There is more than one Jain temple in the region, this one is in the village called Naughara Gali, in the Kinari bazaar. We then continue until we reach the Red Fort, where the important Lahori Gate is. It was there that important talks about the history of India took place, such as the independence of this country, today the largest democracy in the world, in which millenary values and customs coexist at the same time with extremely modern knowledge and technologies.
We will save our visit to one of the Red Forts for the one in Agra, with more history, prettier and better preserved.
On the way back to our hotel area, we will pay tribute to the memorial where Gandhi was cremated, Raj Ghat. We will see what was his last word, a sign of great accomplishment on his spiritual path. Those who like photographs, look for images made by Cartier-Bresson, one of the great photographers that ever existed, who was in Delhi that day.