HoHo bus, Aksherdam and Homestay reunion.

After feeling a little down on myself for not being "productive" enough with my time in Delhi, I decided to step up my game.

So I boarded the Hoho bus, sounds perfect for me right? Hoho actually stands for "Hop On Hop Off" and hits 19 tourist sights in Delhi on a half hour rotation for a flat fare. It is also air conditioned, has a tour guide on board that gives basic information to the sights, and some brochures with info as well. Sounds great right? I thought so too. So even I thought 19 was a little ridiculous, so I chose what I thought was a modest but exciting 5 sites that I wanted to see. However, when I arrived at the starting point at 11am, I was told that the ride alone for a full circuit would be 4.5 hours if I didn't get off anywhere. One site I really wanted to go to was actually the last sight on the route, but right next to the starting point, and if I waited for the full circuit it would be closed by the time I came around to it. So I took the HoHo bus into my own hands (that sounds dirty), and went to the last stop first on my own.

This last sight I was going through so much trouble for is Jantar Mantar. It is an ancient observatory that still works! Sadly I wasn't able to calculate the current date and time even though there were instructio

ns because the day I became inspired to finally go sight seeing it started to rain...and these ancient instruments/ monuments are in different complicated ways basically sundials. This usually works very well for a sunny desert place such as Delhi. There are five huge monuments that were used to calculate the time, day, month, year, astrological signs, and houses and a bunch of other things I didn't understand.

I have always been drawn to taking pictures of a geometric nature, so I kinda went nuts here. It was just such a visually interesting place! Astrology has a major influence in India. All holidays, events, and weddings are carefully scheduled around auspicious astrological dates.

Indian monuments and ancient buildings seem to be seen by the locals as more of parks or adult size jungle gyms. Photos were taken yes, but mostly everyone climbed up the walls, made out in the corners, and ran around the pillars as fast as they could. I found similar behavior in Lodi Gardens and a few other ruins I explored last time I was here.

My dad has been trying to get me to come here for awhile and I am so glad I made the effort to check out. It was probably my favorite place in Delhi.

So I went to the bus stop to catch the Hoho bus and "begin" my HoHo journey...however after waiting for 45 min I called and asked where this bus was. They informed me that it won't come for another 20 min. So I went back, explored some more and then finally got on the bus an hour after I expected to board and be on my way.

The next stop was the Cricket stadium, some old ruins, and a mosque. Though I REALLY didn't want to spend more than 30 min there, and the bus dropped me off on the opposite side of the road. After playing frogger with my body, I made it across, but got a little lost as to where I was supposed to go. By the time I crossed a park and found the ruins I only had 10 min to make it back to the bus stop. So not really seeing much, I made back to the bus stop, and the bus was 15 minutes late.

The next stop was a big one for me, the Red Fort (Lal Quila) located in Old Delhi. Built by Shah Jahn who also built the Taj Mahal, the Red Fort served as the capital for the Mughal Empire after Agra and is probably Delhi's biggest tourist attraction. I somehow never made it to the Red Fort last time so I was pretty excited this time.

I know I keep mentioning this and I am sure it will get old soon, but since I keep getting mistaken for being Indian I tried to sneak into the Indian ticket line to only pay $0.20 instead of $4. However, halfway through the line an attendant asked if I was Indian, I got nervous and said no and was redirected to the foreigner line. While I was buying my ticket though, a man came up to me and asked if I would buy 2 more tickets! Meaning even though I was in the foreigner line, another foreigner thought I was Indian and wanted me to buy the cheaper tickets! I found this amusing, told him I am a foreigner too and went inside.




The gate led to a covered bazaar where merchants sold things from all over the country. Then it led to a large courtyard and then the public hall where Shah Jahan spoke to the public from a marble throne. Inside were some nice Mughal gardens, a bit of inlaid marble like the Taj, and a fairly interesting museum with old Mughal paintings, scriptures, clothes, jewelry, furniture, weapons and more. Yes the red fort is big, but I was actually kinda underwhelmed. However I do plan to go back at night for the sight and sound show where they light up the whole fort and do a story-telling tour around the fort.

Across the street from the Red Fort is a Jain temple that has a bird hospital. I remember trying to go last time but never making it. The temple itself was rather impressive, beautifully riveted long pink cones into the sky. I was invited inside and saw floor to ceiling cages of birds. On the left side of a narrow passageway were large cages with hundreds of pigeons, one had doves, and other had hawks or some kind of raptor.

The other side were smaller cages, often with birds that looked like they had broken legs or wings. There were also more floor upstairs of this as well. As the birds get better they release them to the roof and more injured or sick birds are brought in. As I was leaving I was approached by a man who said he was a vet there. I nodded my head approvingly. He then held out a small brown looking pill and told me it was bird medicine. I again nodded approvingly as he pointed out to me a "black dancing pigeon." He then asked me to lick the pill. I told him no thanks. He then licked it and offered it to me again. I think he was trying prove to me it wasn't poison or that it was safe, but really this just deterred me more. He then got a little pushy, saying please just take it, now trying to get me to take the whole thing, licking it again and then offering/ pushing it in my face. I told him thank you for the talk and started to leave. He tried to follow but I got firm and hurried out.

My plan was to see where Gandhi got cremated and Purana Quila, the old for that the Pandava brother's built from the ancient epic the "Mahabaharata." However when I got back to the HoHo bus stand, the bus was again 45 min late, and I realized that there were no more buses after that. So I took the bus back home and slated my last two sights for another time. On the way though I kept seeing goats all over the place! Goats in cars, auto rickshaws, buses, bus stops, on the side walk and in the road, sometimes in flocks!


I realized it was Eid the next day, the Festival of Sacrifice celebrating when Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son to God. Now everyone sacrifices goats.

I came home exhausted.

The next day I went to go have lunch with my old homestay mother who makes me lovingly call her "mama." She is so sweet, and a very spirited, energetic and positive older woman. She invited her daughter, Jaya, and two grandchildren to join us as well. Mama made it clear this was my home and I should be comfortable, and though she would sometimes called me "Amber" I felt right at home. This also meant I was expected to help out as if it was my home. I actually really enjoyed this. I happily set the table, cleaned some dishes and helped get the house ready for guests. We had a lovely lunch of peas and paneer, chicken curry, rice, raita, and some saffron custard.

My hindi has been slowly coming back at best, but it was amazing how much more of my homestay's Hindi I could understand. I am not sure why, maybe just because I was around her Hindi more when I was learning the language it feels more familiar to hear her speak. Regardless, it was nice to feel like I could generally understand the conversation even though half of it was in Hindi. However it didn't take long for the subject of Katherine's wedding to come up, which quickly led to leading questions of when am I going to find a nice Indian boy to marry? They had suggestions and offers to help me find one, they promised he would be wealthy as well.

Today I went to Akshardam. I didn't really know about this place but had heard it was another tourist sight. This place blew my mind, it was incredible. Sadly I wasn't allowed to bring any cameras, batteries, cell phone and a long list other things, basically I could only bring in money and jewelry, but if I was allowed to bring in my camera they would have been the best pictures I took in India.

Ok so Akshardam is a huge Disneyland-like complex devoted to a guy a have never heard of before today, Lord Swaminarayan. His followers believe in non-violence as their basic principle. Swaminarayan mastered the vedas at like 7, left his home at 11 to do severe austerities in the forest, and did a bunch of apparently awesome stuff. He also gets reincarnated, like the Dali Lama. The walkway in glistened with sheets of water coming out of beautifully stone fountains.

The major temple had hundreds of elephants carved out of pink sandstone at the base. Many of the carvings depicted fables and stories from the Mahabharata, Ramayana, life of Buddha and more. Other just values like about strength in numbers and caring families, and being playful but not caring about winning. These carvings were amazing. So detailed and full of motion, even the wrinkles in the elephant's skin could be seen.

Inside the temple was mostly marble with a huge golden statue of Swaminarayan. The walls and columns were all intricately carved, and the ceilings were mind-blowing stone mandalas. The detail rivaled or surpassed Khajuraho and Jaisalmer. If this place was a thousand years old it would be a wonder of the world, however it is all pretty new so instead it felt like what a Maharaja must feel like when moving into to his recently completed palace. Everything was clean, the fountains were all running, and all the art was just stunning.

I don't say "Disneyland" like lightly. The second part of this place was a whole tour/ride of Swaminarayan's life. It was a lot like "It's a Small World Ride," complete with state of the art animatronics that depicted vignettes of his life that were constructed by the same people who did Disney Land. Moving from room to room we saw different phases and stories acted out by the robots, complete with subtle hand gestures and facial expressions, and accentuated by lights and music.

The second part was a rather well produced IMAX movie of his life, where I got to wear snazzy Bose wireless headphones that translated it for me into English. The Third part actually was a lot like the "It's a Small World Ride," complete with a boat ride that showed the wonders of Indian ancient culture. Things like how the Indians' invented the zero, astro physics, universities, hospitals, and even airplanes, I got dubious when it mentioned someone who "invented" Bharatnatyam and airplanes.

Regardless, it was still amusing, state of the art and thoroughly entertaining. I wish I could show you all this, but I encourage anyone coming to Delhi to check it out. The Animatronic part cost about $3.20 and the rest was free! It sucks that I couldn't take any pictures or video. I would LOVE to shoot a film here someday, but in a way it was actually kinda freeing to not have anything on me at all while walking around, just a few rupees. The security was quite reassuring as well. They stored your belongings for free, made you fill out a form that catalogued your valuables, took a picture of you when you deposited it, and then quizzed you on your name, address and cell phone number when you picked it up.

An exciting few days and more to come!