day 2 in delhi

so we went to qatar manar (sp) where there was this really old
tower, and an even older, like thousands of years old, 7m iron pole. it was less
than climactic, though supposedly scientists are quite impressed with the purity of the iron ore.

when trying to get into this cultural attraction, there are two prices you can pay: the foreinger price and resident price. the foreigner price is like 25 times local price.

dad tried to pass some of us off as non-foreigners (250Rs vs 10Rs if you're indian), and as we're going in they stop us and the guard asks me: "what country are you from?" i feign like i don't understand him then when he persists i say "canada" and he's like "the jig is up!" and so we pay full price for 4 of us.. though we should've paid for 5 because my dad no longer counts as indian.

personally, i think dad just likes trying to get away with breaking the rules, it's his little thrill.


so next we went to the jama masjid and the red fort. the jama masjid was quite pretty -- a huge large open area and dome where people come to pray. it seems like many, many people just hang our there for the day, letting their children run around and be wild. since you can't charge entry to a mosque, they came up with this crazy idea to charge our cameras an entrance fee. if your camera wants to "see" the mosque, it needs to pay 150rs!

at the red fort we saw this stupid light show covering the history of india from the mughal time through 1950, all in one hour! dumbest thing we did so far. we did the hindi light show cause we figured we didn't want to wait an extra hour for the english version.. mistake!

it was awful. the lights were these pathetic shining lights, and the words, well, we couldn't understand. i listened to my ipod and got stung by a bazillion mosquitos. none of us brought mosquito repellant!

today we head to agra and the taj mahal, which neha says is the most beautiful man-made structure she has ever seen. that's high praise!