We've a slight prang on the way home!

Saturday morning and I'm off like a tourist to see some more of the thriving metropolis. First stop the Bahai Temple known as the "Lotus Temple" not surprisingly because it is like a lotus! It also looks like the Sydney Opera House minus the waterside. The plan was to follow this with a visit to the "Mughal Gardens" which are open today (they're not open every day!), but after my drive there it appears that no cameras or mobiles are allowed inside the gardens. I'm not one for gambling so I decide that I don't need to see the gardens since it means leaving my camera in some large sort of left-luggage tent. The camera has all my pictures since coming here and I've no intention of risking it's loss. On that basis the gardens can be missed. A change of plan sees me go to the "Jama Masjid" the largest mosque in India (it should be noted there are more muslims in India than there is in Pakistan) and the Indian muslim population is second only to Indonesia in terms of numbers.

My footwear are placed for safekeeping with a shoe keeper as opposed to a zoo keeper (puerile joke), and I purchase a small decorative hat for the visit. The temperature is now well up since in keeping with "mad dogs and englishmen" I'm out in the mid-day sun. The result is that walking across the open court yard is like walking on coals that are alight, and again my plates of meat are being put to the test (just like playing football yesterday or the day before with wimpish squeals).

That's enough for me and I'm off back to Connaught Place in the centre, but via the "Thieves Market" as it is known colloquially as, but the tattoo is enough to distract any would be "tea-leaves", so no problem there.

A wee bit of retail therapy in CP has me ready for the journey home. I've a choice of rickshaw drivers, but choose one who has fewer teeth in his mouth than me and looks about 75 yrs old. His price is 80 rupees to base in Hauz Khas, but in a reversal of haggling I tell him he can have 100. After all he's smiling like I imagine I do at night! In fact he drives like a bat out of hell and dodges in and out of traffic like a retired formula one driver, until some cretin cut across our bows damaging his own car but not the rickshaw to any great extent as it was already battered!

Namaste from New Delhi