We had a full day of Delhi tourism on Saturday! We woke up bright and early, packed up our respective bags and headed out to meet Dharminder at his car. Our first stop was the India Gate. It was a beautiful morning, probably in the low 70s. It’s hard to explain the enormity of it, even with the pictures! The gate was built in 1931 and is also known as the All India War Memorial. It honors the 90,000 soldiers who died fighting for the Indian Empire.

Our next stop was Jantar Mantar. When you enter the area, you are surrounded by 13 fascinating structures. All of the structures are astronomical instruments that were used to predict the movement of the sun, moon and planets. It was built around 1724. Ryan and I read every single plaque that explained how each structure was used. We got about halfway in and were entirely confused. Needless to say, we were left in awe.

Also, there were quite a few fieldtrips visiting Jantar Mantar that same day so we enjoyed watching little kids run up and down the structures, the boys throwing a ball around in the grass and the girls skipping around in circles and singing little rhymes. Some things are the same everywhere ;-)

Then we stopped at Mahatma Gandhi’s memorial. We walked down a beautiful path to a huge expanse of green grass. When we got near the center we were asked to remove our shoes. The memorial is exactly what you would expect: beautiful, unimposing, and serene.

We next stopped for lunch at an amazing restaurant. We invited Dharminder to eat with us and we each had an enormous Masala Paper Dosa. I think we finished in about 4 minutes without taking a break to drink or breathe!

Lastly we stopped at the Lotus Temple. It was the most grand, yet subtly beautiful structure I have ever seen. Upon approaching the temple we again removed our shoes. We walked barefoot up the bath until we saw the beautiful pools of water. There are a total of nine pools surrounding the temple. The temple is made up of 9 “petals”. The contrast of the teal blue with the stark white of the temple was breathtaking. We sat near the water for about half an hour just soaking in the serene surroundings.

Before we entered the temple, guides (in both Hindi and English) explained that the Lotus Temple is also known as the Baha’i House of Worhip. The Baha’i faith’s principles are the oneness of mankind, independent investigation of Truth, the common foundation of all religions, the essential harmony of Science and Religion, equality of men and women, elimination of prejudice of all kinds, universal compulsory education and universal peace. The inside of the temple had no real focus point or “front” and was silent for the most part. After we spent fifteen minutes or so inside, we again relaxed outside before calling it a night.
And we'll end it with an artsy picture courtesy of Ryan