Well I had a wonderful time in Delhi.
Me Nepal's staff travelled back to Nepal so that left just the three of us. Mr Nepal his business partner and me.
We saw so much of the crazy city and did so many things. Every morning we would be up early and out and we would be travelling all over the city from Old Delhi to New Delhi, from Temples to Mosques from the lush pretty gardens in the modern area to the poor slums on the edge of the city filled with poverty and disease. We must have used every form of transport under the fiery sun, the train, metro, cycle rickshaw, motor rickshaw and at one point we travelled on a cart pulled by a bull the size of an elephant.
We visited a beautiful Mosque, the largest mosque in India The Jama Masjid. The courtyard is huge and holds over 25,000 worshippers, thank God they were not all there on that day.
Mr Nepal's business partner is a Muslim so for him especially it was an experience of a lifetime, but for all of us it was incredible.
It was so so beautiful. It is made from rich red sandstone and pearly white marble that felt so refreshingly cool under my hot feet and just pressing my cheek against the beautiful smooth walls made me feel so peaceful inside.
The Mosque was designed by Shah Jahan the man who designed both the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort. It sits proudly on Bho jhal one of Shahjahanabad's two hills and over looks the colourful streets of Old Delhi.
We climbed the red sandstone staircases enfolded in their coolness and peacefulness to the top of the tower that overlooked the splendour of the Mosque, it's white marble bulbous domes and minaret reaching into the heavens.
I stood in the shadows and watched my friend as he prayed to God. It was a beautiful moment seeing the peace and devotion on his handsome face and it made me question again how people can be so ignorant and small minded and believe that only one religion can be right. Of course there can not be only path to God, the world is full of millions of different people, thousands of different cultures and hundreds of customs and beliefs so how can anyone try to force all of that onto one path.
Watching devote Muslims pray that day, hearing their words of devotion whispered into the sacred breeze of that magnificent place I felt so close to God and close to the peace that I think we are all looking for.
Travelling the world I have been so fortunate to live within Buddhist countries, Muslim, Christian and Hindu. My dearest and kindest friends are Krishna Devotees and I have met the most special souls in all of these faiths so again I feel that only ignorance can try to dictate that there is only one path to God.
For me I believe that if you want to have God in your life, if you want to live to do Gods work then open your heart and let God come in. The door is always open we just have to step inside.
I think our path will be shown to us eventually if we really seek to find it. I was born into an Irish Roman Catholic family but I know that is not the path for me. My brother who is the most kind and loving soul is a Christian but again I love Jesus and his teachings but I know that the Christian path is not the way for me and my sister who I love dearly is such an extremist in her faith that she believes that if you do not follow the path to God through Christ you will burn in hell. I think that it is crazy to believe that all Hindu's are wrong and all Buddhists and so on and only the Christians are right. It is ludicrous and unbelievable to me. I respect the path that my family have chosen and I only wish my sister could respect mine.
If we could just understand that there is only one God and we all have the right to follow our own path to find him and to respect each other and our differences then what a peaceful world we would live in.
So as I stood there watching my friend pray I realised that I would always feel just as comfortable in a Mosque as I do in a temple or in a Church because my heart is open to God and he will find me where ever I am and whatever building I am standing in.
We also visited the Red fort (Lal Qila).
Again it is built with red sandstone and is modelled on the fort at Agra. It was incredibly beautiful with lush gardens and marble domes and a beautiful mosque in it's grounds all surrounded by a huge moat that was once filled with cool water from the Yamuna river.
It was very busy, mainly huge Indian family's from small babies right up to the grandparents, I thought it was wonderful that so many people take their whole families on these trips to educate them about their country and History.
The Visit to the museum within the fort was very hard for me. In every room there were paintings and sculptures depicting the British invasion and rule over India and their struggle for Independence.
The fear they brought with them etched into every painting before my eyes and as I stood there among all of those Indian people I felt ashamed and sickened of my heritage and my white skin.
So many people died so many people suffered, so much was taken and raped and stolen from these people. I felt I had to get out of there because I felt I was contaminated, that stood there I was a reminder to them all of what had been done to them and their people.
So I left and waited outside in the shadows crying for all of those terrible things that we had done.
We also visited the very beautiful lotus temple that stands so peacefully like a white angel amongst a million flowers overlooking the dusty city. It is shaped like a giant lotus flower and inside it is so cool and so peaceful and the white marble floor radiates like a beautiful lake lit with the sun shinning through the windows. It is not dedicated to any particular religion, it is a shrine of Love to God, a place where anyone from any religion can go to pray to God and be still.
The three of us sat in prayer inside the white marble silence and I don't think anywhere in the world was more peaceful at that moment.
Travelling in male company makes it so much easier in India. Don't get me wrong I have been travelling now for three months alone and no one has touched me or overstepped the line to the point that I felt frightened or threatened but the attention is overwhelming. Everybody stares at me all the time and when you are surrounded by 20 men on a bus and all 20 sets of eyes are looking at every inch of your body then you do feel uncomfortable. So travelling with an Indian man and a Nepalese man made me feel a lot more comfortable and protected.
We were able to see so much of the City because Mr Nepal had been there so many times. He would lead the way and we would follow through busy bizarres and narrow back streets, dodging crazy drivers and clumsy cows, we travelled in boats on rivers and trains under and over the city.
There are so many more places to see in Delhi but in four days we never stopped rushing this way and that and we were all exhausted and to be honest four days was more than enough. I would definitely come back and do a little more there but the pollution and hecticness of the place really is intense so I really was ready to leave the city.
We were leaving the next day for Agra to visit the Taj Mahal and I could not wait. I had dreamt about visiting the beautiful Taj Mahal for years.
All in all Delhi was an amazing experience and I love Delhi with all of its filth and squalor and hassle and hustle. It's like anything if you open your eyes and your heart and scratch bellow the surface you will see the true essence of what is really there.
It is the same with people. Even the person you judge to be the worst of men, if you open your heart you will see that underneath all of that anger and pain and hatred in their eyes that we are all the same. And inside everyone there is always good maybe it is very deep or maybe it has been forgotten or trampled on so badly that it is a very dim light inside a dark cave but it is there....we just have to look with an open heart.
Me Nepal's staff travelled back to Nepal so that left just the three of us. Mr Nepal his business partner and me.
We saw so much of the crazy city and did so many things. Every morning we would be up early and out and we would be travelling all over the city from Old Delhi to New Delhi, from Temples to Mosques from the lush pretty gardens in the modern area to the poor slums on the edge of the city filled with poverty and disease. We must have used every form of transport under the fiery sun, the train, metro, cycle rickshaw, motor rickshaw and at one point we travelled on a cart pulled by a bull the size of an elephant.
We visited a beautiful Mosque, the largest mosque in India The Jama Masjid. The courtyard is huge and holds over 25,000 worshippers, thank God they were not all there on that day.
Mr Nepal's business partner is a Muslim so for him especially it was an experience of a lifetime, but for all of us it was incredible.
It was so so beautiful. It is made from rich red sandstone and pearly white marble that felt so refreshingly cool under my hot feet and just pressing my cheek against the beautiful smooth walls made me feel so peaceful inside.
The Mosque was designed by Shah Jahan the man who designed both the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort. It sits proudly on Bho jhal one of Shahjahanabad's two hills and over looks the colourful streets of Old Delhi.
We climbed the red sandstone staircases enfolded in their coolness and peacefulness to the top of the tower that overlooked the splendour of the Mosque, it's white marble bulbous domes and minaret reaching into the heavens.
I stood in the shadows and watched my friend as he prayed to God. It was a beautiful moment seeing the peace and devotion on his handsome face and it made me question again how people can be so ignorant and small minded and believe that only one religion can be right. Of course there can not be only path to God, the world is full of millions of different people, thousands of different cultures and hundreds of customs and beliefs so how can anyone try to force all of that onto one path.
Watching devote Muslims pray that day, hearing their words of devotion whispered into the sacred breeze of that magnificent place I felt so close to God and close to the peace that I think we are all looking for.
Travelling the world I have been so fortunate to live within Buddhist countries, Muslim, Christian and Hindu. My dearest and kindest friends are Krishna Devotees and I have met the most special souls in all of these faiths so again I feel that only ignorance can try to dictate that there is only one path to God.
For me I believe that if you want to have God in your life, if you want to live to do Gods work then open your heart and let God come in. The door is always open we just have to step inside.
I think our path will be shown to us eventually if we really seek to find it. I was born into an Irish Roman Catholic family but I know that is not the path for me. My brother who is the most kind and loving soul is a Christian but again I love Jesus and his teachings but I know that the Christian path is not the way for me and my sister who I love dearly is such an extremist in her faith that she believes that if you do not follow the path to God through Christ you will burn in hell. I think that it is crazy to believe that all Hindu's are wrong and all Buddhists and so on and only the Christians are right. It is ludicrous and unbelievable to me. I respect the path that my family have chosen and I only wish my sister could respect mine.
If we could just understand that there is only one God and we all have the right to follow our own path to find him and to respect each other and our differences then what a peaceful world we would live in.
So as I stood there watching my friend pray I realised that I would always feel just as comfortable in a Mosque as I do in a temple or in a Church because my heart is open to God and he will find me where ever I am and whatever building I am standing in.
We also visited the Red fort (Lal Qila).
Again it is built with red sandstone and is modelled on the fort at Agra. It was incredibly beautiful with lush gardens and marble domes and a beautiful mosque in it's grounds all surrounded by a huge moat that was once filled with cool water from the Yamuna river.
It was very busy, mainly huge Indian family's from small babies right up to the grandparents, I thought it was wonderful that so many people take their whole families on these trips to educate them about their country and History.
The Visit to the museum within the fort was very hard for me. In every room there were paintings and sculptures depicting the British invasion and rule over India and their struggle for Independence.
The fear they brought with them etched into every painting before my eyes and as I stood there among all of those Indian people I felt ashamed and sickened of my heritage and my white skin.
So many people died so many people suffered, so much was taken and raped and stolen from these people. I felt I had to get out of there because I felt I was contaminated, that stood there I was a reminder to them all of what had been done to them and their people.
So I left and waited outside in the shadows crying for all of those terrible things that we had done.
We also visited the very beautiful lotus temple that stands so peacefully like a white angel amongst a million flowers overlooking the dusty city. It is shaped like a giant lotus flower and inside it is so cool and so peaceful and the white marble floor radiates like a beautiful lake lit with the sun shinning through the windows. It is not dedicated to any particular religion, it is a shrine of Love to God, a place where anyone from any religion can go to pray to God and be still.
The three of us sat in prayer inside the white marble silence and I don't think anywhere in the world was more peaceful at that moment.
Travelling in male company makes it so much easier in India. Don't get me wrong I have been travelling now for three months alone and no one has touched me or overstepped the line to the point that I felt frightened or threatened but the attention is overwhelming. Everybody stares at me all the time and when you are surrounded by 20 men on a bus and all 20 sets of eyes are looking at every inch of your body then you do feel uncomfortable. So travelling with an Indian man and a Nepalese man made me feel a lot more comfortable and protected.
We were able to see so much of the City because Mr Nepal had been there so many times. He would lead the way and we would follow through busy bizarres and narrow back streets, dodging crazy drivers and clumsy cows, we travelled in boats on rivers and trains under and over the city.
There are so many more places to see in Delhi but in four days we never stopped rushing this way and that and we were all exhausted and to be honest four days was more than enough. I would definitely come back and do a little more there but the pollution and hecticness of the place really is intense so I really was ready to leave the city.
We were leaving the next day for Agra to visit the Taj Mahal and I could not wait. I had dreamt about visiting the beautiful Taj Mahal for years.
All in all Delhi was an amazing experience and I love Delhi with all of its filth and squalor and hassle and hustle. It's like anything if you open your eyes and your heart and scratch bellow the surface you will see the true essence of what is really there.
It is the same with people. Even the person you judge to be the worst of men, if you open your heart you will see that underneath all of that anger and pain and hatred in their eyes that we are all the same. And inside everyone there is always good maybe it is very deep or maybe it has been forgotten or trampled on so badly that it is a very dim light inside a dark cave but it is there....we just have to look with an open heart.
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