Yesterday's adventure was to visit one of India's Heritage sites, Qutab Minar. It's a mosque complex built by several different rulers over several generations and includes a tall tower which is actually the Qutab Minar. It has some amazing architecture that had me wondering how anyone could carve that kind of detail in stone now with power tools let alone in 1192 using hand tools only. I enjoyed the visit even if I did go a little late in the afternoon to see everything before sunset, that wasn't the real adventure though.
Getting there and back was the adventure. I walked the half mile to the metro station and went to the nearest station to the Minar all without incident. When I left the metro station it was apparent that I could not possibly walk there, major roads to cross, no clear path and all that. So I grabbed a rickshaw and took the ride of my life. Traffic here is insane, no one stays in lanes, people drive the wrong way on one-way streets. There is no such thing as a safe stopping distance and at one point my driver actually reached out and touched the rickshaw next to us as a warning when were going around a corner. I don't know if you can really get a sense of how crazy the ride is frm the pictures but I hope so. When I got there I felt lucky to be alive and disturbed that I would have to return by the same method. On the advice of those who have been here before I refrained from being a back seat driver, held my tongue and hoped for the best. Obviously I survived, but I was sure glad to get back to the metro even if I did have to stand up the whole way back in rush hour.
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