Delhi Tomb Review Update 2

While I was in India, I grew to hate Delhi with a passion, and by the time I left for Bikaner I’d already spent more time there than any visitor ever should. But since I had to return there after Lucknow for my flight home anyway, I thought I might as well add a few more places to the Delhi Tomb Review (original review here and first update).

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Jantar Mantars

As you can tell from the previous few posts, our tour of Delhi, Jaipur and Agra included a lot of visits to tombs, forts and palaces. Throw in a couple of mosques and museums, and you’ve pretty much summed up the trip.

Except, that is, for the Jantar Mantars.

A Jantar Mantar is a uniquely Indian artifact: a set of giant, building-sized instruments for taking precise astronomical measurements. They were built in the 1720s and ’30s by Maharaja Jai Singh II of Jaipur in several cities, including ones in Jaipur and Delhi, which still exist.

Overview of the Jantar Mantar at Jaipur (public domain, Wikimedia Commons)

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Holiday

I’m currently on a two week holiday, visiting the classic tourist destinations of Delhi, Jaipur and Agra with my girlfriend. There will be a short blogging hiatus during this time. Normal service will be resumed after the break.

Edit 22/10/13: Actually I’ve got a bit of spare time while we’re in Jaipur for a couple of short posts.

Third day in and out of Delhi

I had a bit of trouble kick starting the bike this morning. I’ve never had a bike that needed kick starting before. Although that’s just a specialised case of the general fact that I’ve never had a bike before. But the bikes I’ve learned on have always had electric start. The Bullet has electric start too, but first thing in the morning it needs to be kick started, and then can be electric started after that. I struggled with the kick start this morning, quickly building up a sweat in the Delhi heat, to no avail. Then I tried the electric start, and it worked.

I rode back to Karol Bagh with Sadhana: my neighbour’s sister and the person whose family I’m staying with in Delhi. We stopped at Tony Bike Centre, and I asked them to take a look at the kick start. They confirmed that the problem wasn’t with the kick start, it was with me. So they showed me a few more times, and I practised, and started to get the hang of it. I also got them to adjust the back brake lever up a little, more as an excuse for turning up than anything.

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First day in Delhi

I arrived in Delhi yesterday. Everyone says India is a shock when you arrive. And I was surprised: by how quiet it was. Delhi airport at 7am isn’t the hectic chaos I was expecting. Nor was the Metro Airport Express, nor was the street outside Shivaji Stadium station, where I was supposed to wait for my friend Nidhi to pick me up. I was waiting for about 20 minutes, so by the time she arrived, I’d made several more friends already, like the autorickshaw driver whose brother (not really his brother) was studying in Birmingham.

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