Monkies, Snakes, Tombs and Temples

Ok, so it’s a pretty high falutin title but it’s ture though not in the sense of Indiana Jones. These are a few pictures from my first two weeks in India.

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Saw these sad monkies near the India Gate in Delhi. The owner would beat them to make them dance and do tricks. He kept a horrible thick rope around their necks so that they wouldn’t run away. The often times tried to fight back biting him but it looked like he was pretty used to the complaints. So these Monkies are angry but they should be.

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The same area of the monkies had a so called snake charmer with a medium sized black cobra. It’s venum pouches were taken away so it’s fangs were pretty useless. The snake rose and was more pissed at the owner than wanting to dance. It was still cool. The guy insisted on placing the angry snake around my neck.

Humayan tomb was a really nice looking tomb. It was the inspiration for the Taj Mahal but used red marble instead of white.
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The scale of the tomb was huge as well, looming perhaps 7-8 stories high and a whole city block long.

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The entrance to the inner tomb is inscribed with arabic. The inside of the tomb boused the king, his two queens, and various cousins and close servants and even dogs.

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The next sight was a bit hard on the heart. The big and very old muslim temple was lined with beggars, young and old. There were people that just could not move. They were so sad and all reached out their hands to people who passed in such sorrow, despair and weary that it was tough to watch. There was a little girl about the age of 6 or 7 who cared a naked baby about the age of 1. They were both dirty and kept pulling at our cloths for money. When we got on the rickshaw to leave, the girl and another one similar to her age ran after us. The sight of such a little girl so desperate, running barefoot with a big baby as big as her torso is still an image I’ll never forget.

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We next visited the old are of Delhi. You will see some picture in the previous post.

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The streets were literally packed tire to tire of rickshawas, bicycles and motorcycles, not to mention people, dogs, cows and the occasional three wheeller car, the tuk tuk.

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Food was all over the place, espcially in dark and dingy cornors. Delhi belly anyone?

The below pciture is the outside of the Channey Cwok area at dusk. I really like the atmosphere in this picture.
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