The Qtub Minar complex

The Qtub Minar and Iron Pillar to the right

Old Delhi – taken from the steps of the mosque

Wearing our leg-covering skirts

Jama Masjid Mosque and scorching hot stone plaza

Jama Masjid Mosque

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Our destination in Old Delhi was the Jama Masjid mosque. You can’t drive to the mosque so we parked a bit down the road and hired two bicycle rickshaws to pedal us up. Our poor guy had to carry Geno, myself and our driver. The trip up to the mosque and back was crazy to say the least. The trip required crossing one of the most ridiculous intersections I saw during my time in Delhi. There we no lights, stop signs or traffic police – just a 4 lane divided road – a road we needed to cross – intersecting with the road up to the mosque. Basically what happens is that everyone sits and waits for a guinea pig with no regard for his life to just go for it – at such point the cars on the main road come to a stop to avoid killing the “point man”. Everyone else then rushes across before the cars figure out what’s going on. Occasionally there will be a brief break in the traffic (brief meaning about 2 seconds) and a rickshaw or two will “go for it”. Amazingly, they always seemed to make it. The cars, however, will only let so much traffic cross before they get impatient and just start moving. Your objective is to not be in the middle of the street when they decide this or you had better kick in the extra adrenaline boost to get you the rest of the way across the road. This adventure cycles every 5 minutes or so.

Our rickshaw driver finally made it up to the mosque, but had to pull the bike half of the way as we were too heavy for him to pedal up the mild incline. Like most of Delhi’s sights we passed through a metal detector. I headed to the entrance and walked straight in. Apparently someone was yelling at me to stop because I was wearing shorts (which aren’t allowed in a mosque), but I didn’t hear them and kept going. Geno and Scott were behind me so ended up taking most of the guy’s wrath. I turned around and didn’t see Geno or Scott so I headed back to the entrance where I found them renting some skirts to cover their legs. I finally figured out what was going on and rented a skirt as well. Also, no shoes are allowed inside the mosque so we had to go barefoot. Now keep in mind it was probably about 98 degrees (37 degrees C) and we were walking on red stone – a pretty good color for absorbing the suns energy. Needless to say, the walks across the sunny courtyard of the mosque were brisk and painful.

Since the mosque was in Old Delhi we caught our first glimpse of the poverty in that area. Robert and I would come back to Old Delhi to see more several days later. We headed back to the car, braving the “intersection of death” yet again, and headed to the Lotus Temple before heading home. On Mondays, several of the sights (like the Lotus Temple and Red Fort) are closed as well as most of the museums so we had to be content with pictures from afar.

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