Friday Nov 4

Late start as the rest of the trip had arrived in the wee hours as we had the night before. After lunch, we headed onto the bus to see New Delhi. New being a relative term, since we first went to Qutab Minar, a 4th century burial place for Mughal emperors that had been converted to a mosque when the Muslims invaded in the 12th century. There was an enormous “Tower of Victory”, measuring 240 feet. Some of it had been restored, but it was mostly ruins. There were 28 temples for emperors buried here earlier that the Muslims destroyed for their mosque.

Then to a mini-Taj Majal, which was the burial tomb of Humayun, another Mughal Emperor, built in 1565. Elaborate gardens and lovely stonework. The weird part was seeing 6 pointed stars, ie “Jewish Stars”, on the wall of a Hindu tomb. It was explained that the 2 triangles were representative of the Masculine side (Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva) and the corresponding Feminine side(Shakti, Lakshmi & Parati). It brought back Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon in the Davinci Code, in a weird way. The air and smog were getting very thick, so pictures were a problem.

We then went to a Sikh Temple. We had to take our shoes and socks off to go in, and no pictures were allowed inside as they were having a ceremony. It was beside the fact that they were televising the ceremony, and cameras were all around. The Sikhs do not cut their hair or shave, thus the turban to put it all somewhere.