Our enrichment week was to visit Delhi and the Taj Mahal. We arrived late at night in the backpackers section of town. The next morning we were awoken by the pandemonium that is city life in India: lots of mixed pedestrian/motorcycle/car traffic in every direction, noise, and dust.We visited the Red Fort and the outside of the Jama Masjid Mosque (it was closed for mid-day prayer). I was surprised by the extent of Islamic influence in the capital city. Before the British, it had been the capital of the Moghuls and some of the architecture remains. The British tried to create a more ordered capital, hence the contiguous New Delhi.
We went out to Agra later in the week to see the Taj Mahal. It was incredible, the only difficulty being we could not visit it for sunrise, since it is closed on Fridays. By the end of our visit, the students and myself were all eagerly awaiting our arrival in South Africa, and the chance to eat beef.
