Helen and Randall on the road

We arrived in Delhi in the early hours of Saturday morning so Saturday was a pretty uneventful day of a bit of a lie in, a leisurely breakfast on a roof terrace in Paharganj, then traipsing around Connaught Place getting a replacement iPhone for Randall as he managed to drop his into the workings of his flat-bed seat on the plane and grind it into pieces., as well as getting SIM cards sorted which turned out to be one of those classic ‘more complex than it needs to be’ transactions requiring photos, which had to be taken in the photo studio down the street, which took 15 minutes to process them (and this after, in the rather Heath Robinson studio upstairs, the photographer had asked me to ‘clean face’ as I was apparently too shiny for the camera).

We had dinner of dhal, rice, veggies and parathas plus a few beers  at Paharganj staple ‘Sam’s Rooftop Terrace’ , then after wandering the length of Main Bazaar we called into ‘My Bar’ for another couple:

On Sunday morning we rose in time for breakfast in another rooftop cafe overlooking the bonkersness of Paharganj…auto-rickshaws, cycle-rickshaws, the odd car, the odd cow and people people people competing for space and attention. Then it was off in an auto-rickshaw to the Jantar Mantar – our rickshaw driver was quite mad; swerving up to other vehicles to shout at their occupants, but he made me laugh a LOT when we passed a small minibus with some naff western hippy hanging out of the window – all dirty dreads and grubby ‘I”m *spiritual* maaaaaaaan’ robes – and our driver practically pranged the bus so he could yell ‘NICE HAIR, MAN!!!’ at him before veering off across the traffic in the other direction. *Smirk*.

The Jantar Mantar looks like a sculpture park but is actually a series of astronomical measuring instruments built in 1724:

The gnomon of a huge sundial, accurate to within several seconds.

Posing in front of a clock that tells the time in Delhi, Zurich and Tokyo.

Instrument for determining detailed astronomical information for astrological purposes, ie for calculating birth charts based on detailed star sign info.

Samrat Yantra (the big sundial) from another angle.

Part of instrument for measuring azimuth of celestial bodies:

Clever, no?

Peering through one of the arches.

From the Jantar Mantar we walked to the nearest metro station on the Delhi Metro – I was SO excited about this as I had been finding it hard to imagine what a metro/underground/subway system would be like in India. As it turns out, busy, efficient, clean, modern and cheap; women only carriages, mobile phone charging points and and 3G network coverage. At only 15 rupees and 12 minutes to Green Park station for Hauz Khas village, we were very impressed!

At Hauz Khas village we met Farah, a friend from London who had just arrived in Delhi for a week’s work in Gurgaon, for lunch at Gunpowder which was lovely, South Indian food on a table overlooking the lake. However, no booze so we caught a taxi back to Farah’s very posh hotel, the Oberoi in Gurgaon, for pudding and a bottle of wine:

Randall and Farah – terrace of 361° bar/restaurant, overlooking the ‘reflection pool’.

Helen & Farah, one bottle of Prosecco down

Hotel employees, wetsuited up, cleaning the bottom of the pool. Once the sun went down it was really cold so they must have been FREEZING!

The hotel was super modern and very beautiful, although with perhaps still a few teething problems; while the service was very attentive we still had to ask for the dessert menu FOUR times before someone brought it to us! That said, there were a huge number of complimentary snacks – cheese, dried fruit, bread fresh from the oven, indian sweets – brought to our table while we polished off two bottles of Prosecco and they were all fantastic so perhaps they just thought we were mad for actually ordering and paying for food! Still, the melt-in-the-middle chocolate pudding was divine.

Because they messed up our request for a taxi back to Paharganj (oh the come down!) we got a free limo service back care of the hotel. Which was nice.

The rest of the pics are here.