The Moto Wanderer: India/Istanbul Trip Day 9: Day of exploration (3/5)

Wake up and go to breakfast before getting my bag mostly packed as I have a little time. Set a meeting time and point and tell the group I am going for a walkabout if anyone wants to join. 3 people meet me up and we head out. Walk over to the rail and take it a stop or 2 to the India gate area. The rail was clean and crowded, which i guess in a city so big/populated that is to be expected. Get out and walk over to the ministry complex as I thought it looked cool the other day and wanted to check it out. We walk around there and then since everyone else with me hadnt seen India gate yet, we walk our way that way.

Metro time. Lets get the day started.

Ministry area had some pretty flowers surrounding it.

Huge birds (hawks?) chilling in the fountain.

Better look at the birds. Looked like raptors of some sort.

Entrance to the Ministry complex.

Some more pretty flowers.

Love how these flowers change colors on their petals.

Compulsory Indian flag waving picture.

They had many of these pillars along the walk way. Turns out each one is for a different country from its time in the British empire.

Just looks like a different time.

The end of the road through the ministry buildings. This is the president's home.

Looking out towards the gate. Not a bad view.

Alright ladies, lead on.

Side of the Gate with some cool looking old doors.

As we walk this guy walks and talks with us and keeps trying to talk us into going to a market to do some shopping. We keep telling him we are not buying stuff but he persists. Walks the whole way with us. We explore India gate and then as we leave, he is right there. We tell him where we are going, he arranges tuk tuks to take us and then after that he says they can take us to the market. We get in the tuk tuks and head to Agrasen Ki Baoli, an old cistern. The tuk tuk drivers waited there after we paid them with the expectation they would take us to the market after. We go inside and take our time enjoying the cistern with its many steps and the side paths you could walk on. Go down to the bottom, and thought I heard something; sure enough up on the ceiling there are a ton of bats just chilling. We go back up and figure out the plan for rest of the day.

We are in the right place. Lets check it out.

Entry way. Looking pretty chill on those steps.

This is very cool. Apparently we are not alone in wanting to hang out here.

Glad this place is still standing. Tis beautiful.

Pigeons chilling in their holes. Guess people leave food around as this guy is well fed.

Gate keepers. Just kidding, there were people taking/posing for pictures all over this place.

Heard some noise once we got to the bottom and looked up.

Anyone tell what that brown stuff is on the ceiling? Yep those are bats :)

Bats hanging out at the cistern

Town exploration gang hanging at the bottom of the stairs.

Time to start the hike back up.

This place is essentially a stone park. People hanging out, on dates, reading, etc. and enjoying being outdoors.

Went over on a ledge at the top to look down. Stayed close to the wall hahah.

Tell tuk tuks we will walk rest of way, and walk over to Janpath market, turns out this is where the McDonald's we went earlier in the trip is located. They hadnt had McDonald's yet so we go in for a snack and to use the bathroom before continuing on to the Jantar Mantar ancient observatory. Was a series of outdoor buildings that they used back in the 16 and 1700s to follow stars; all without telescopes. I would like to take some time to actually learn about how they did their measurements as they relied on the curvature/height/location of the buildings to make their observations. As we head to the central market, we explore the Masjid janpath market which is a little street market where vendors have little stalls selling whatever with hordes of people walking by. The group disperses in pairs to do a little shopping and then meet back up and head to central park.

As we walked around the city, we saw quite a few buildings that looked really cool.

Another example.

Looks stoic but saw another flag waving pic so took it.

Space hotel?

We have found our next stop.

One of the buildings on site. As you walk around, there are placards around explaining how they used the buildings.

One of the placards. Lots of info.

This guy was mowing the yard while we were there. I watched how he would do this as his mower spit grass out in front of him into a bin.

The front then had a pivot and handle to just dump the collections. Assuming they bag it after but yeah found the difference in the mower compared with the one I used growing up interesting.

Central structure for the complex.

Little bit about the structure.

I just like this picture.

In the back they had these 2 coliseum buildings with pillars inside.

Little information about the spheres.

The inside.

The gang checking out the back side of the arch area as we prepare to head out.

Realize it is just green space with tons of western shops circling it and eventually make our way down to the Palika Bazaar as one of the group wanted to check out a tattoo parlor. This was an underground market that had periodic exit staircases up to the surface. Interesting to walk around down there as you could find all sorts of items to buy (as one might expect in a bazaar). We walk toward a beer bar (walk by a playboy bar? didnt know those were a thing) and get in there and service was slow even though we were half the people in the bar. Guy comes and asks what we want, doenst have any of the beers I ask for and has to go check if they have some of the others. While we are there, power goes completely out so we get tired of waiting and we walk a little more. Many places affected by the power outage, find a place, the tourist, in the area not affected by the outage so we go up and check it out. The inside decor was awesome and they had cheap beers so we get a few buckets and make our way back to the hotel. Tuk tuks quote us 200 rs as we are 2 white people and it is getting late. D and I tell them 30 as that is what we paid earlier in the day for our tuk tuks. They laugh at us so we start walking. We get about 100 ft away and then another tuk tuk comes up and says hell do 70. We stick at 30. They keep lying about everything and anything - its times like this when you have all the information (rail stops, maps, etc.) it pays dividends. They come down to 50 and at that point we realize its a lot cheaper and more efficient to do 50 then to make our way to the metro and take it so we agree and hop in. Takes us to the hotel and we go in and everyone is hanging in one of the rooms waiting for pizza. Dominos pizzas are tiny there, they ordered a couple larges and what I can only describe as personal pizzas came. Everyone had a tiny piece or 2 and hang out and then everyone goes back to their rooms to get what sleep we can as tomorrow we all leave and we have to be up at like 2am to make it to the airport.