A day in history: Hamuyan's tomb and the red fort

 Our first stop was the very beautiful Hamuyan’s tomb.  The gardens of this tomb house other mausoleum’s, some in their own cordoned off gardens.   I was foggy and cold, and I was still unwell but nevertheless the beauty of the place was enough to raise my enthusiasm for a walk through the grounds.  The photos tell it better than I can, but you need to add to the photos the strange (to my ears at least) chirruping of squirrels, the cawing of crows and the constant click, click, clicking of metal against rock from a group of about twenty men working on chiseling away little pieces from a large pile of slabs of red stone on the ground, I presume for maintenance work.  Everyone talks about the fact that it costs Rs10 for Indians and Rs250 for visitors.  Personally I totally don’t understand why anyone would mention it other than to say what a great idea it is.  And really, if as a Western tourist you can’t afford $5 for a site visit then I wonder how did you afford to get to India in the first place – I mean the visa is 40 times that cost to start with.

Second visit was the Red Fort.  The Fort didn’t do it for me quite as much as Hamuyan’s, at least not until I reached the very last building within the fort that was stunningly beautiful and originally part of a water garden.   Men seem to like forts though.  This evidenced by Jon’s sudden transformation into Laurence of Arabia and the length of the ‘men’s queue versus the ‘ladies’.   Yes they divide you up into two queues for a frisk down and bag search.  You have to pass through a metal detector too.  If all this has not managed to establish that you are a problem, never mind because the next thing you face is a machine gun firing squad behind a pile of sandbags.   Now I don’t blame the Indian people for this security, given recent terrorist attacks at crowded locations, it’s just that this was the first time I have actually faced a machine gun pointed at me and it does make you feel just a little bit uncomfortable.  I thanked God that I never got caught smuggling drugs into Indonesia.