The One Where We Climbed The Minaret

We spent all of today sightseeing in Delhi. After breakfast, we got picked up by the TIP group in a huge bus that had TOURIST written on it. Our first stop was Lal Qila (Red Fort). There was a man selling fake mustaches and beards outside, and he let me take a picture of him! I have a hard time imagining who would buy fake facial hair from him, but whatever. The fort was very open on the inside, a lot of courtyards and smaller buildings. After the fort we headed over to Jama Masjid, the biggest mosque in India. We had to climb up a flight of stairs to get inside, and we weren’t allowed to wear shoes inside. We were all pretty much running to find shade, since the ground felt like it was on fire. We prayed in the women’s area, and then a man came and showed us all these cool things they have stored at the mosque: a manuscript written by Hassan (RA) on deerskin, Prophet Mohammad (SAW)’s sandal, one of his beard hairs (there are only 3 in the entire world), and a stone with his footprint in it, which was supposed to be after Isra/Miraj, when his feet would leave an imprint on stone. Afterwards we met with the guys and a bunch of us decided to climb up to the top of one of the minarets. This turned out to be quite a challenge, since we had to climb up 130 steep steps in complete darkness, and there were more of us than there was space in the minaret, so it was cramped/hot/ridiculous. The view from the top was amazing though, we could see all of Delhi! After we came down we all met up at Kareem’s, a hole-in-the-wall restaurant in Chandni Chowk (walking distance from Jama Masjid). It was SO HOT outside, and we were famished, and this was our first Indian meal together. You can probably imagine how amazing the food was :)

After food we went to see Humayun’s tomb. Most of tried to pass as locals when we were buying tickets to get in, but it only worked for a few of us. I was not one of them :( Anyway this was a pretty big site, and we went from building to building and saw many tombs, most of them belonging to past emperors and one belonging to Humayun’s wife, Hamida Begum. The biggest structure was set apart from the ones we visited, and this was where Humayun’s tomb was. The building was built from red sandstone, and actually the Taj Mahal’s architecture was inspired by the structure of Humayun’s tomb.

Our last stop was the Qutub Minar, which I personally found the most beautiful from all the monuments we saw today. We all went home absolutely exhausted, but looking forward to our drive to Agra tomorrow!