Last Stop in India

Our final day in India was back at Delhi, back to the chaos. On recommendation from a friend, we tried the Grand Hotel, which from the outside looked like a normal hotel frontage, but inside proved to be the most luxurious place we have yet visited on our trip! The marble floors and spiral staircase, the large room with air con, widescreen TV (with Premiership football showing!), push button room service and a separate bathroom, all spotlessly clean. What a treat!




We managed a trip out to the Red Fort, located in Old Delhi. This is a magnificent structure of immense size, even by today's standards. Built over 400 years ago for the ruling emperors of the time, it would have made a big impression on those having an audience with the emperor.
The gateway into the Red Fort is colossal, causing you to strain you neck backwards just to try and see the top of the carved sandstone walls.

Unfortunately, many of the older parts within this walled palace have been razed to the ground and much of the original grandeur has gone. Instead of gold covered walls with the splendour of jewels and ivory, the bare wooden carved paneling is exposed, with parrots using cracks in woodwork to form their nests. Ironic really.

But if you stop and look long enough, you can imagine the enormity of the pomp and grandeur of this place. It's almost inconceivable to think this was used as a British barracks until 1949, until you see the ugly coarse brick and concrete structures in the middle of the grounds!

And so closed our short time in India, a country of such contrasts, so very different and diverse from quiet Shrewsbury. And yet despite all the chaos, the dust and the dirt, the smells, the crowding - despite all the shocking contrasts, it is a country with a magnetic appeal.