Greetings from New Delhi (INDIA)

Hello from New Delhi, where today's temperature was about 104 degrees!  I arrived early this morning after a late evening flight via Munich.  Somewhere in the travels I lost a day because of the change in time zones and the close to 7 hour flight.  After a short nap, then lunch, I did some sightseeing with the help of a tour van provided by the hotel.  New Delhi is definitely not a walking city, not simply because of the heat, but also because of the great distances in different areas of the city.  There is no downtown or center of the city.  New Delhi, the modern capital of India, and the old city of Delhi are all over the place.  There is also a dramatic difference between Delhi and New Delhi.  Delhi is a maze of narrow streets with hundreds of shops, thousands of people walking about or riding in tuk-tuks (a picture of which is above), and dirty!  New Delhi, not much cleaner, has wider boulevards and streets, a Metro (part subway, part surface train) system, and government and corporate offices everywhere.   I am attaching photos from today's sightseeing, many of which were taken from inside the van.

Tomorrow, I am joining a tour and going to Agra, the city of the Taj Mahal.  We leave at 7:00 AM to avoid the traffic, which I am told is quite considerable during the morning rush hour.  More than 15 million people live here!

Finally, the WiFi here is high speed, so I hope to catch up with my photos of Istanbul.  Stay tuned to a few postings of Istanbul from my WiFi access in India ...

The flag of India.

Parliament

Government office building near Parliament

The flag on the left is that of China.  The President of China is here on a state visit, and Chinese flags are all over the area of the Parliament buildings.

India Gate, a monument to commemorate the end of World War I.

The more than 3 kilometer street which stretches from Parliament to India Gate is a broad boulevard lined with parks.  This section of the boulevard is near India Gate.

New Delhi's major Sikh Temple.

New Delhi's Roman Catholic Cathedral

Statue of Pope John Paul II to commemorate his visit to the cathedral.

A major Hindu Temple of New Delhi.

Entrance to the Temple of the Monkey God (I kid you not!)

The Monkey God stands astride his temple.

Street vendors in the market area of the old city of Delhi.

Note the Moslem woman covered in her veil.

One of the many narrow streets of Delhi.

No matter how thirsty you are, only drink bottled water in India!

The main gate of the Red Fort (something for you to Google!) in Delhi.

A thousand year old Hindu Temple in Delhi.

Indira Ghandi Stadium, part of the complex of offices for the world headquarters of the Commonwealth Games.

Tomorrow, it is the Taj Mahal!