India - Part II

The next day we headed to New Delhi via metro, the metro is really cheap and easy to use. Aside from the hundreds of uncomfortable stares the metro was quite pleasant. It seems that the Indian men just wanted to eat Latanya for dinner, in this case an early breakfast. We got off the metro, found our bearings, and checked out some government buildings along with the Presidential residence. From there we made our way to The India gate. During our stroll to the India gate an auto rickshaw driver constantly tried to gives us a lift. His prices went lower and lower as we got closer. We repeatedly told him we liked to walk and he wasn’t taking no for an answer. It was quite funny how persistent he was . As planned we arrived to the gate by foot some 10 minutes later. The India gate resembles the Arc de Triumph in Paris.

Near the gate Latanya’s hand was grabbed forcefully by a tiny old Indian woman with henna ink in her hand. She proceeded to apply henna designs on Latanya’s hand. I yelled to Latanya to pull her hand away because once applied she would demand payment. However the price was good and Latanya got one hand done for $1. After the henna application, we hopped in a rickshaw (not with the guy from before) to the Humayun tomb. The tomb was an inspiration for the Taj Mahal. Taking a nice stroll around the tomb we were able to admire its beauty and size. From the tomb we went to the Lodi gardens, saw some more temples and tombs. Then we regrouped on what our next destination would be. Latanya decided to go to the U.S. Embassy area thinking we would be able to find some place to eat and/or stroll around. Little did we know the only thing around the embassies were embassies guarded like small fortresses. During our walk, the henna on Latanya’s hand began to itch, it had been a few hours since the ink was applied. Not knowing how long to keep the ink on her hand, Latanya decided to rub it off. Once it was removed she was quite disappointed that the ink was very faint. At least the itching had stopped (morale of the story henna for a $1 really means henna for $1). So we regrouped again and took a rickshaw to Connaught place. We were expecting a western style mall and got an Indian bootleg version of an outlet mall, a very bad one at that. It was crowded, smelly, dirty, and loud. We stuck around only long enough to buy a shawl for the Taj and some floor cushions. From there we headed back to our hotel and ordered some delicious Indian take out. We called it a night because we had to be up early to catch a train to Agra home of the TAJ MAHAL.