India - New Delhi Layover

 Returning from our trip to Bhutan we had a day in New Delhi before an evening flight. 

Qutb Minar

India is very, very different from Bhutan.  Where Bhutan is peaceful, quiet, and respectful; India is chaotic and noisy.  New Delhi felt like it was under siege.  At the airport you need an itinerary and passport just to get past the military guard at the door.  Inside the custom folks were uniformly rude and not helpful.  While there were guides for lines, some people just pushed or cut in line to get to the front.

Outside the airport, the hotels and shopping malls required you to go through TSA like checks of yourself and your bags just to enter.  Any time a taxi would show up in the hotel driveway they would check under the hood and in the trunk for bombs.

Once inside a secured mall it was more peaceful.  Biggest difference with Bhutan was all the chain stores.

For our tour we hired a guide and driver.  Driving in New Delhi was an experience.  Two lane roads routinely have 4 lanes of traffic.  People often drove the wrong way for a few blocks (including our driver) if that was a shorter way to go. There were horses, Tuktuk, trucks, cars, motorbikes, and bikes all jostling for position on the road.  They constantly are honking at each other the entire time - I think to let other folks know they are there and tailgating is normal.  No one moved to allow the ambulance to move.  We were happy to make it to the airport in one piece after the tour.

Tuk tuk

Ambulance stuck in traffic with lights blinking, no one moved

We went to a two archaeological sites that were very good.  The first was Qutb Minar a beautiful site from the 13th century.

The second site was the 16th century Humayun's tomb which was a model for the Taj Mahal. There were several other beautiful tombs on the site.

Humayan's Tomb

Barber Tomb

Entrance gate

Isha Khan's Tomb

At many of the sites, local Indian's wanted to get their pictures taken when us as we were so different.  We were different in Bhutan also, but their culture is more reserved so they never asked to take pictures with us.

Although I enjoyed visiting the archaeological sites, I really do not want to go through the New Delhi airport again.  That was a miserable experience.