Delhi

He wrapped himself in quotations - as a beggar would enfold himself in the purple of Emperors.

Rudyard Kipling

In New Delhi, I finally found enough 'time of useful consciousness' to get out of the hotel and go and a walk-about. I am in debt to my FO for his knowledge of the city.

The Hotel Mauriya is a den of luxury and sybaritic pleasure. I shudder to think of what it costs the company to put us up there - it is easily and hands down the nicest place that FedEx puts its' pilots in - this makes the juxtaposition with the poverty in the rest of India so shocking. It is one of the few hotels I've been to that has a front gate with gate guards. To get a taxi, you have walk out through the gate and hail one from the street. We got in this one:

I found myself humming foolishly: "I don't care if it rains or freezes, long's I got my plastic ....buddha... sitting on the dashboard of my car." (Plastic Jezuz)

On closer inspection, that may not be a Buddha but some other Hindi god or goddess....

In any case, the cabbie took us to a very tasty Indian restaurant - Moti Mahal - somewhere near all the diplomatic section of town.

I was well tucked into the meal before I realized I should have taken a good shot of the presentation before I started eating. So you get this image:

and this one of the excellent Indian brew:

After eating, we found a Tuk Tuk and rode over to Humayun's Tomb. Gentle readers, I have flown supersonic, navigated at high speeds at low altitudes with a student pilot at the controls and sat through many a new student pilot landing but the Tuk Tuk ride paled those experiences. Please play this video.

Keep in mind that my little camera has a wide angle lens and things in the wide angle lens appear much farther away than they really are......

We arrived at the tomb and exited the Tuk Tuk...

and contracted with the Tuk Tuk driver to wait for us while we walked around the grounds of the tomb. Off we went.

Humayan's Tomb was evidently the precursor to the Taj Mahal. It is a very beautiful edifice and the grounds around the tomb are spread out over many acres. Further, they are subdivided into many walled subsections. This is the gate into the inner section.

There were many dogs trotting about. Just to the right of the above picture was this scene:

Through the gate, we got the first view of Humayun's Tomb.

We walked through the dark door at the center of the tomb and up some very steep stairs and into the upper level of the artifice. The upper level is where all the stars of this episode reside. At the very center of the upper level tomb is the ol' boy his ownself.

Having gotten just about as much out of this cultural trip as we could, we retraced our steps out of the grounds and back towards the waiting Tuk Tuk. But before we left we investigated this lesser temple on one of the subgrounds.

On the trip back to the hotel, I wish I had been more ready. I could have shown you the monkeys and cows that occasionally hove into view on the streets on the way back.

The next day we operate off to Shanghai, China. More on that later,

Dad / Geoff