Day 2 - Delhi

Today we slept in, accidentally, which forced us to leave the hotel in the afternoon - during the hottest part of the day. It was HOT--more than 100 degrees. This was a day of firsts--our first day with our new Indian look, wearing kurtas and salwar kameez, our first auto-rickshaw ride (motorcycle with cabin), and our first scam...




We ate lunch at Saranavas Bhavan, a South Indian style restaurant and had a thali and dosa.



After lunch we experienced our very first scam. As we tried to find the Jet Airways office in Connaught Place, (to buy our tickets for our flights within India), we were met by a 25ish-old looking professional man. He spoke great English and seemed to be passing by--and we fell victim to his polished appearance. He pointed us to a non-descript office building - in the location where our Lonely Planet map seemed to indicate the Jet Airways office should be. This was not the Jet Airways office -- it was an empty space with 6 similarly-professional looking guys offering us twice the prices that we had seen online. We learned not to trust people based on their "helpfulness" -- a lesson which is proving useful throughout India.

After putzing around Connaught Place trying to decide what to do, we finally decided to brave the Old City and see the Jama Masjid - the Friday mosque. We had to take off our shoes to enter (remember, this is 2pm in 100-degree heat), and walk around the sun-exposed sandstone barefoot! Imagine one pale white girl, one tall Asian man...dressed in Indian clothes...prancing and skipping around a mosque because of the hot surface...







Later we wandered around Janpath street and looked at the Tibetan market (OK), Cottage Industries Emporium (disappointing) and the street vendors.






For dinner, we ate at Pakrikrama, a North Indian top-floor revolving restaurant with lots of Indian families. It was delicious...but it helped that we ordered 2 times what families of four were ordering next to us.