The Traveling Idiots-Where The Tuck Are They Now?: Happy Diwali!

After about 24 hours of traveling across 9 and a half time zones we arrived in Delhi. I'm not exactly sure how the half a time zone happens but it does. It was a long trip but thankfully the flight from New York to Dubai wasn't very crowded so we could stretch out a bit. Unfortunately neither of us are very good at sleeping on planes. Needless to say we were pretty spaced out when we got here.
We've now been in Delhi for a little over a day. So far it has been absolutely amazing. We are staying at the Shangri-La hotel in New Delhi. It's a very nice, comfortable and modern hotel. We got here late in the day. We were exhausted but firmly committed to staying awake at least until 8:00 PM or so to start to get adjusted to the new time zone. We jumped in the chilly but refreshing pool for a bit, ate some cheese crackers we had packed and almost made our goal!
We both slept pretty well and woke up refreshed and ready to go. The breakfast buffet here at the hotel is one of the best that I have ever seen. It goes forever with breakfast offerings from around the globe. Everything from traditional made to order omelets, bacon, toast and cereal to things we had never seen before. We sampled quite a few new things that were really good. I'll try to get a few pictures tomorrow morning.
Our first stop was "Old Delhi". As the name implies this is the older section of this city of 15 million people and probably what most people visualize when they think of India. It's a bit loud, crowded, gritty and very interesting all at the same time.
After visiting the Jama Masjid Mosque we did what may turn out to be one of the highlights of the whole trip. We enjoyed a rickshaw ride through the streets that were bustling with people, cars, tuk-tuk's (open air taxi's), bikes, buses, dogs and more. Street vendors were selling pretty much everything you could imagine from flowers, toys, colorful blankets, souvenirs and even goats heads (a local delicacy we've been told). It was crazy fun...........unless you're a goat.
https://theculturetrip.com/asia/india/articles/old-delhi-a-living-piece-of-history/
We visited the Gandhi Memorial which was built at the site of where he was cremated. We also visited the Qutub Minar which is a 234 foot tower that is known as the seventh wonder of the Hindustan (Land of the Hindu's) and Laxmi Naryan Temple. Because of Gandhi it was the first Hindu temple that allowed the lower caste (poorest of the poor) to worship inside. Now wasn't that nice of them?
http://www.delhitourism.gov.in/delhitourism/tourist_place/qutab_minar.jsp
http://www.delhitourism.gov.in/delhitourism/tourist_place/birla_mandir.jsp
Overall impression after day one.............amazing. There is so much history, culture and sights to see. Someone who had visited India shared with us that it is a constant assault on all your senses in both a positive and negative way. So far I would tend to agree with that assessment except, the positives way outweigh the negatives and the negatives aren't really negatives at all.
Now about Diwali. Little did we know that we were going to be arriving on one of the biggest Hindu holidays of the year (70 percent of India's 1.2 billion people are Hindu). Diwali is a festival of lights which symbolically signifies the victory of light over darkness. Right now there are fireworks going off outside the hotel window even though there weren't supposed to be any this year because of the current high level of air pollution. Families are gathered for meals, prayer and celebration.
Tomorrow we leave Delhi and head for Jaipur which is known as the Pink City. We're just getting this adventure going! Happy Diwali from the Tuckers. Enjoy a few pictures from Delhi!