A Trip to Manali I : To my countries capital

We just had a week in Trivandrum and in my home town. On 29th of June we came back to Bangalore. It was my first experience driving in the highways to Bangalore. 30th we stayed in Hosur and that day evening we came to my flat in Bangalore.

01-07-2009:
We had our flight at 6.00 in the morning. As usual Amoolya was taking her own time in preparation which made us delay to start. Somehow we managed reach Bangalore Airport at five in the morning. Flight was at its scheduled time and we reached Delhi by 8.30 in the morning. Our driver Chottelal was waiting for us in airport. We went to Birla Mandir. Everything including Car Parking, shoe racks were free out there. Amoolya was amused to see lot of Kollulla car (You must be familiar with luttappi by now, if not it’s my bike and Kollula car is the new comer to my favorites list) there in Delhi. We then went to Qutub Minar after that. She wanted to see the pillar which was shown in Cheeni Kum movie (common, I think girls are really fascinated by all these things).



Next journey was the lotus temple which was amazing. I was really impressed to see the brilliant structure of it. Interior was just amazing and we were asked to sit in silence there. We walked around, took couple of photos and went to President House. We just had glimpse of Parliament house and then stopped near India Gate.

After having food at Pindi restaurant in Pandara Market (Place where people just come to eat) which really burned (literally, it was costlier than our Sahib Sindh in Forum Mall Bangalore, the one I found costlier after the star hotels here in Bangalore) few bucks from my pocket we went to Akshardham Temple (Visit this to see the temple, its just next to wow). It was just brilliant example of art in India. Beautiful carvings, structures and I liked the audio-animatronics and light and sound diorama presentations from the life of Bhagwan Swaminarayan. I also enjoyed the boat ride in which they took around the culture and civilization India. I just don’t have words to explain. It was really a wonderful experience. After that we went to our hotel for check in. I was impressed with the entrance ambience of Lalit Hotel when compared to other five star hotels I have been to(This is the first time I shelling out my money to stay in a five star hotel). Rooms were really huge with Lcd Monitors and all other amenities.

A funny incident happened in between, We both went for purchase in Palika bazaar there in Delhi. We went to an auto driver to ask if he can drop us there. That guy said the bazaar should have been closed by then and he was asking us to go another bazaar. From our driver we knew that it will remain open till 8.00 in the night. He kept following us giving us options to other bazaars in Delhi. I got a bit scared because Amoolya was with me. I was disturbed by the atmosphere and later somehow we found Palika Bazaar. Whatever we select there, they will ask upto three times its rate and initially we lost some amount in bargaining. By the time we learned the technique we were too late. We returned to our hotel in an auto. We saw some foreign delegates coming to the hotel in huge cars with their countries flag and following those people in cars like Porche and Ferrari. I was imagining that scene of me going to hotel in that rickshaw. I asked the driver to stop it in the main gate and we walked to the hotel.

Next day morning our driver came to drop us to New Delhi railway station. I was really disturbed to see the capital city’s station. It was not clean, very crowded and no facilities at all. I don’t know when my country will have stations of international standard. We waited there for our Shatabdi to reach there in the station. Rest of our travel in future posts.