You can read Ladakh Trip - Planning here
As the D-day drew closer, there was the usual frantic last minute shopping to ensure we had everything that we had been told is essential to survive in Ladakh. from all the Do's and Don'ts we had gathered from our friends and online blogs about their experiences in Ladakh, we assumed we had a pretty exhaustive list of everything we would need. With that we were finally geared up for 12th July.
It was an early morning flight to Delhi which meant we needed to be up at an unearthly hour of 4 am to get ready, but no one seemed to be complaining as this was the trip we had waited for years.
We are not a superstitious bunch but we do have this travel day tradition that any trip needs to start off with a good round of hogging. Its our belief that depending on how we hog on day 1 its indicative of how our food habits during the rest of the trip would be. This trip was no different, as soon as we arrived in airport and were done with our security check, the first thing we did was enter a restaurant and ordered ourselves a good round of full breakfast and so began our trip and day 1. Oh and the selfi overdrive Abhishek and Shilpa seemed to be in. We were snapping selfies pretty much at every point from checking into Bangalore airport, restaurant, checking into the flight, in the flight to arrival in Delhi. This was also i believe an indication of how many photos we were going to have at the end of the trip!
The schedule for Day 1 was Flight to Delhi and a complete day to do as we please in there. We arrived to a very hot and humid Delhi and checked into our hotel. The Delhi part of the trip was not something we had really planned out in very detail, which meant that we didn't have a freaking clue what we would do. Having checked in to the hotel we didn't waste too much time, and got down immediately to talk to the receptionist and plan out frantically what all places we would be able to cover without really exhausting ourselves. With that we had Qutub Minar, Aksharadham and India gate in our list of places we were going to visit that day. The hotel guys were kind enough to quickly arrange for an Innova that we could use.
Qutub Minar - A minar that was constructed by Qutub ud din aibak and took almost 200 years to complete by his subsequent generations. It consists of 5 different levels each one constructed by a different generation in a different design. the Qutub complex also consists of much older ruins of Hindu temples which were cleared to build the qutub minar. This place is also home to famous rust resisting iron pillar. If you visit this place, i do advise you to take a guide to really appreciate the history of the place. The whole complex takes about an hour worth of time to go around. A cap or an umbrella is an absolute necessity along with a bottle of water to keep you hydrated and a sunglass so as not to go blind in the bright sunlight.
Akshardham - Now this is a must visit place if you are visiting Delhi. The scale in which the temple complex has been built is awe inspiring. Once you get there, be warned that you will need to either leave everything behind in the vehicle you are travelling in or deposit all mobiles, bags, cameras, umbrellas etc. at the security deposit. You will not be allowed to carry anything inside the complex. The security around this place is quite tight and rightly so, considering its sister temple in Gandhinagar Gujarat was target of a terrorist attack. Also be prepared for a long walk, as i mentioned earlier the scale of the place is so huge that you will end up spending at least 2-3 of hours walking around inside the complex. Those caps, bottle of water and sunglasses come in handy once again.
As we were not allowed to take cameras in, i have linked images of what i could find of the place from internet so that you can see what i am talking about.
The main temple structure is built entirely of stone and completely covered from bottom to top with very intricately carved designs of flora, fauna, deities and worshippers. The temple houses a larger than life sized and a very beautiful statue of Swaminarayan.
This is where i was completely taken by surprise. In my ignorance i had assumed that Swaminarayan referred to Krishna. Turns out that Swaminarayan lived sometime between 1780 to 1830 and considered to have attained enlightenment. He is credited for several reforms he made to Hindu society and widely acknowledged even by Britishers for this. We roamed inside the temple drinking in the beauty of what our eyes could see of the various intricate designs.
Soon we were so tired of walking around in the sun that we just gave up and decided we wont be able to cover everything inside the complex. The complex houses a vast food court as you walk towards the exit which caters to several varieties of cuisines from chat to Chinese to full meals and walking in tired, it felt as we had just walked straight into paradise. We didn't waste too much time and ordered as much as we could from the each stalls that are around the place. Only after having hogged as much as we could of all the chats and food we decided to make a move towards exit. We sadly had to skip the light show that the temple is quite famous for along with several other things like an IMAX theatre and other parts of the temple complex. But if you are planning to visit the temple, i will advise you to make it a day long trip as i believe you will need a whole day to see the complete place.
Here is the link to a site that has pics and videos of the Akshardham Delhi
India Gate - A war memorial with names inscribed of Indian soldiers who died in various wars since world war 1. This was the last place in the list to visit before we had to call it a day. This is in the heart of Delhi and we drove through several prominent government offices and buildings that i had only seen on news channels. The Republic Day Parade starts from Rashtrapati Bhavan and passes around the India Gate. Also housed near the India gate is the Amar Jawan Jyoti. Amar Jawan Jyoti is manned round the clock by soldiers drawn from the three services of the Indian armed forces. Its a proud sight to see our soldiers standing vigil. Rashtrapathi Bhavan we couldnt unfortunately visit as this was cordoned off for the evening.
Having covered as much as we could we headed back to our hotel. The day was quite hectic and we now knew first hand about the much talked about Delhi heat. What made things even more interesting was our driver playing non stop Haryanvi songs all through out the day. We headed back to the hotel tired and glad the day had ended and absolutely excited that next day our actual Ladakh trip would begin.
The hotel we stayed in: Airport City
Its very close from the airport and the very reason why we choose this hotel. Its hidden away in one of the smaller alleys . You can use Google maps to reach pretty close to where it actually is, and from that point rely on asking people how to get there. We didn't really spend much time in here as this was more of to freshen up and dump our luggage. Overall i would say it was an average hotel. The food was definitely good, but you will need to order in advance and quite clearly make sure they have it as in our case they did get the orders mixed up and served us less food.
Ladakh Trip - Day 2(Leh) here.
As the D-day drew closer, there was the usual frantic last minute shopping to ensure we had everything that we had been told is essential to survive in Ladakh. from all the Do's and Don'ts we had gathered from our friends and online blogs about their experiences in Ladakh, we assumed we had a pretty exhaustive list of everything we would need. With that we were finally geared up for 12th July.
It was an early morning flight to Delhi which meant we needed to be up at an unearthly hour of 4 am to get ready, but no one seemed to be complaining as this was the trip we had waited for years.
We are not a superstitious bunch but we do have this travel day tradition that any trip needs to start off with a good round of hogging. Its our belief that depending on how we hog on day 1 its indicative of how our food habits during the rest of the trip would be. This trip was no different, as soon as we arrived in airport and were done with our security check, the first thing we did was enter a restaurant and ordered ourselves a good round of full breakfast and so began our trip and day 1. Oh and the selfi overdrive Abhishek and Shilpa seemed to be in. We were snapping selfies pretty much at every point from checking into Bangalore airport, restaurant, checking into the flight, in the flight to arrival in Delhi. This was also i believe an indication of how many photos we were going to have at the end of the trip!
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| Selfi overdrive |
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| At Delhi Airport |
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Qutub Minar - A minar that was constructed by Qutub ud din aibak and took almost 200 years to complete by his subsequent generations. It consists of 5 different levels each one constructed by a different generation in a different design. the Qutub complex also consists of much older ruins of Hindu temples which were cleared to build the qutub minar. This place is also home to famous rust resisting iron pillar. If you visit this place, i do advise you to take a guide to really appreciate the history of the place. The whole complex takes about an hour worth of time to go around. A cap or an umbrella is an absolute necessity along with a bottle of water to keep you hydrated and a sunglass so as not to go blind in the bright sunlight.
As we were not allowed to take cameras in, i have linked images of what i could find of the place from internet so that you can see what i am talking about.
The main temple structure is built entirely of stone and completely covered from bottom to top with very intricately carved designs of flora, fauna, deities and worshippers. The temple houses a larger than life sized and a very beautiful statue of Swaminarayan.
 |
| To give you an idea of scale, the statue of worshippers is life sized! |
Soon we were so tired of walking around in the sun that we just gave up and decided we wont be able to cover everything inside the complex. The complex houses a vast food court as you walk towards the exit which caters to several varieties of cuisines from chat to Chinese to full meals and walking in tired, it felt as we had just walked straight into paradise. We didn't waste too much time and ordered as much as we could from the each stalls that are around the place. Only after having hogged as much as we could of all the chats and food we decided to make a move towards exit. We sadly had to skip the light show that the temple is quite famous for along with several other things like an IMAX theatre and other parts of the temple complex. But if you are planning to visit the temple, i will advise you to make it a day long trip as i believe you will need a whole day to see the complete place.
Here is the link to a site that has pics and videos of the Akshardham Delhi
 |
| Soldier standing vigil |
Having covered as much as we could we headed back to our hotel. The day was quite hectic and we now knew first hand about the much talked about Delhi heat. What made things even more interesting was our driver playing non stop Haryanvi songs all through out the day. We headed back to the hotel tired and glad the day had ended and absolutely excited that next day our actual Ladakh trip would begin.
The hotel we stayed in: Airport City
Its very close from the airport and the very reason why we choose this hotel. Its hidden away in one of the smaller alleys . You can use Google maps to reach pretty close to where it actually is, and from that point rely on asking people how to get there. We didn't really spend much time in here as this was more of to freshen up and dump our luggage. Overall i would say it was an average hotel. The food was definitely good, but you will need to order in advance and quite clearly make sure they have it as in our case they did get the orders mixed up and served us less food.
Ladakh Trip - Day 2(Leh) here.
