"Capital of India" New Delhi by Hui-Hui

Closer our bus approached the capital, more new cars we saw. (Most of cars in India were old and second-handed.) On the way to Delhi, we stopped in a rest area (Pawna restaurant). My sister and I were willing to spend out all the rupees which we had and took interest in hand-made notebooks. The original price of big one was 650 Rs and small one was 500 Rs. And after hard bargain we got 2 big+3 small beautiful notebooks for only 1000 Rs!

After entering the city, there were more traffic jams and modern buildings of steel and concrete. Once we stopped in front of a traffic light, the bus was hit loud by some aggresstive beggars. The traveling guide said that south of Delhi was a district of wealth where the rich lived in big villas. However, I still saw cows walking on the roads and poor people stayed in shabby tents or just slept open-air on the side walk… There were even open-air hair salons under trees! The gap between the rich and the poor was so huge!!

We had lunch in a Chinese restaurant called Lotus Pond. It was quite an expensive good restaurant for locals and I saw a rich Sikha family next to our table. (The television there only showed one channel of an old documental film about cricket… It was strange.) The dishes were served at very low speed. There came vegetable soup, spring roll, fried noodles, soya chicken, fried vegetables, fried chicken and so on. Basically they tasted Chinese but fried vegetables were too dry and fried chicken was not crispy enough. By the way, how come there was only one lady’s washing room in such a high-class restaurant?

Actually before entering the restaurant I took a picture of the building. At that time I was shocked because I felt that I was touched by a cold finger... A girl stood by my side and asked me some money... After lunch we stayed in the bus parking next to the restaurant for a while. A female beggar with a naked son did begging to us... At the other side there was an open-air salon on the sidewalk and a woman was lying sleeping under shadow of tree.... How a sad scene was!!

Lotus temple

Our bus stopped outside the park of Lotus temple. Some western tourists and a lot of Indians also looked at the special architecture in shape of lotus outside the fencing… The traveling guide said that it was on Monday so the park was close. Frankly speaking I was not so interested in this new building…

Afterward we went to a tea shop. It was nice because finally I had good opportunity to spend out all the rest rupees! I spent about 1,980 Rs (44 USD) buying Darjeeling black tea, Earl Grey Tea, Kashmir green tea and Magic Oil etc.

Then our bus drove through the administrative district. The space was wide full of green plants. We first saw various embassies—German, Dutch, British, American, Canadian…especially Chinese one was the biggest. President bureau looked like White House in rice-yellow color… All the above architectures were built during British Colony in western style. Parliament building was a new huge building in circle fitting its high position in the country. We also passed headquarters of Air force and Indian National Congress but they just looked like normal offices…

India gate

Finally we arrived at the landmark of New Delhi! India gate was a copy of “Arc de Triomphe”. The arch was built to the memory of soldiers who made sacrifice for the country during World War 1. 90,000 names of soldiers were craved on it. But it was forbidden to walk under it and some soldiers with real guns guarded the important place. Across a main road President Bureau was there. It was time when students left school and office workers went back home so the traffic was extremely busy.

There were quite many Indian tourists. There were also some touts selling flutes, drinks and so on Especially I saw a small rickshaw with a telephone with a mark “STD ISD PCC” and a guy talked on the phone there. What was it???

At the square a vendor sold a kind of snack-water ball. Due to our request the traveling guide was kind to show us how to have it. He put a hollow ball in a special bowel made of leaves and then put potato, green soup and spicy sauce in it… He paid 10 Rs for 7 balls and drank a bowel of green soup in the end. It looked so delicious!! Unfortunately if we had had it, we would had problem on stomach so we had to give up the idea!

• Pros:neat, wide, modern
• Cons:ridiculous gap between the poor and the rich
• In a nutshell:It has everthing as the capital of India