Day 9

After visiting Jaipur, Agra and Varanasi we went back to Delhi in a morning flight from Varanasi. Went to our hotel that allowed us an early check in. Had indian lunch at Malhotra Restaurant which was very good, cheap and with free wi-fi, just what we like.

Gurudwara Bangla Sahib

Mahendra left us at the Gurudwara Bangla Sahib temple, get in there for free, but they insisted very much on taking your shoes off and let them outside the temple, you can’t put them inside of a bag, also to cover your hair (men and women). The entrance is a little wet because they wash their feet before coming into the temple.

This Sikh temple was first built as a small temple by Sikh General Sardar Bhagel Singh in 1783, who supervised the construction of nine Sikh shrines in Delhi in the same year, during the reign of Mughal Emperor, Shah Alam II. It is situated near Connaught Place, New Delhi on Baba Kharak Singh Marg and it is instantly recognisable by its golden dome and tall flagpole, Nishan Sahib. Located next to it is the Sacred Heart Cathedral.

It is beautiful in the inside and pictures are allowed.

After this temple, we then went back to our hotel to chill the rest of the afternoon.

Day 10

Since it was Sunday and the hotel dinning room was small, we had to wait a little bit before having our breakfast and heading to the Spice Market.

From the Red Fort to the Spice Market

Our driver left us in a parking lot close to the Red Fort (Lal Quila). We started by taking a look from the outside of the Shri Digambar Jain Lal Mandir, followed by a visit to the Red Fort.

Mughal ruler Shah Jahan, when in 1639, shifted the capital of his empire from Agra to Delhi in order to heighten the esteem of his regime and fulfill his motivated building plans, a new city named Shahjahanabad was founded which we today see as Delhi or more specifically Old Delhi. Along came the foundation of a fort called Red Fort in the northern side of the town. It took about nine years to complete the construction of the fort 1639 to 1648 for the Mughal ruler. Red Fort was utilized as the residential purpose but the Mughal ruler but was also capital of Mughal rulers till the regime of Bahadur Shah Zafar. In 2007, UNESCO included the Red Fort in the list of World Heritage Site. (from: http://www.redfortdelhi.co.in).

Continued walking down the Chandni Chowk road till we saw Gurudwara Sisganj Sahib, Town Hall and the Fatehpuri Masjid at the end of the road. All this road is very intense, full of people, cars, noise, little stores and lots of people selling lots of stuffs on the street. In my opinion, you can skip walking it and just visit the Red Fort first and then the Spice Market at the end of the road.

After arriving to the spice market we realized it is close on Sunday, anyway there were some shops open and we bought some amazing spices.

Even though we love Indian food, after 10 days, we felt like going to Mc Donalds and buy some nuggets. Just what we did on our way back to the parking lot to meet our driver.

Dargah Hazrat Nizamuddin Mosque was next, totally unnecessary to go there. The walking from the street to the Mosque is very crowded, and you´ll probably see some sick people begging for money.

Next the idea was to visit Chattarpur Mandir and Qutub, but we went first to Hard Rock Cafe in the DLF Place Saket mall and stayed in the mall the rest of the afternoon till it was time to go to the airport (40min from it to the airport).

Our flight was at 01:00am from Delhi to Frankfurt and then back home (Madrid) after this amazing experience in INCREDIBLE INDIA.

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Extra readings: “Preparing my trip to INDIA Part 1“, “Preparing my trip to INDIA Part 2“ and “Readings before going to India“.