Delhi day 2 part 2 (here comes pictures)

The Lodi Garden is a beautiful sprawling park nestled comfy into New Delhi's south side. We arived there after a 2 hour detour thanks to a dishonest tuk-tuk driver. We left him outside next to a police officer who was leaning up against the wall next to the gates we passed through. After the gates, we immediately pass over a bridge that leads us into the park. Somehow neither Mandy or myself bothered to look over the bridge, which we would discover later went over a pond that we spent a good portion of the afternoon looking for.
Mandy wanted to go see the Lodi garden because of the enormous lily pads, so large in fact that they can support the weight of a human.  Ok, well maybe a small child human. Like a one or two year old or something, certainly under 30 pounds.  We came to find those enormous lily pads, and so after crossing over the bridge (and not looking over the side of it) we began criss-crossing the park searching for them.
The first thing worth noting that we came across was some sort of brown building that workers were working on.

Now before I stick my foot in my mouth (in other words sit back and get comfortable while I go ahead and stick my foot in my mouth) let me clearly state that I do not understand the subtleties of the Indian caste system.  Any observations or statements I make about it are from an uneducated outsider looking in at a culture that I am sure is more complicated than its easily accessible veneer. Ok then, on with it. There were "untouchables", or lower caste, working on this brown building  as you can see in the photo.  These untouchables, like most others I saw on work sites had bedding to sleep on at the job site. I'm just making a note on this now, I may talk more about it later in length.
The brown building was next to a rose garden of sorts that was nice, but not nearly as built up as the rose garden in the arboretum in Lexington, so I didn't take a picture of it. There were 3 beautiful hawks in the garden, huge things, the size of vultures... could have been eagles I suppose; they flew away before I could get my camera ready. There are lots of exotic beautiful birds in India, most of them far faster than me and my camera.
We left the roses and to our great surprise there was a towering building just over the hill, tucked in behind some trees.

As we approached to take a clearer picture of it,

we noticed just to the left of this beautiful building was an even larger building!

These buildings date back to the 15th-16th century, and you can read all about them here:

I found lots of things interesting about these buildings, like the intricacy of the carvings on the arches.

And of course, the buildings themselves are quite impressive!

These buildings were the first few we found, but while searching for our giant lily pads, we would find other sights in this wonderful garden. We would walk down beautiful tree shaded paths...

We would even find giant cement "lily pads" (its what Mandy called them anyways)...

As we continued to explore the garden we kept noticing something quite unusual. Well, unusual for India, not for us. The park was filled with couples cuddling! In India public displays of affection are frowned upon, as they are sometimes interpreted as overtly sexual in nature. We discovered that the Lodi garden is a sort of "make out point" for young Indian couples.  No necking mind you, just gently caressing and boy girl and holding.  We would later have a tuk-tuk driver explain, "USA has secrets, they keep them in open. India secrets, they hush hush." It seems that we accidentally found the hush hush make out park, and somehow we felt right at home.
We continued our exploration, and passed an awe struck Indian girl mouth agape at the seen that was unfolding.  Couples caressing! My word! We found it rather cute. We discovered another strange little building, I'm still not sure what its for, but it looks old!

On the other side of this weird little building we found a path that led to a bonsai exhibit.  I liked the little jagged brick path to it, so I took a picture.

This little path led to the bonsai display, which was a very nice touch to a huge sprawling park.

After walking one relatively straight line through the park with no sign of water (hello, bridge?) we made a loop back to find yet another huge building.

 This building had a giant wall around it that we followed.

We followed the wall around to the front, but the gate was locked so we couldn't go inside of this massive fort like building.  When we looked away from the locked gate though we found water!

Precious water! The nectar of life! There also was a very nice stone bridge over it, just large enough for two people to wander over somehow miraculously oblivious to any water below!
Now that we have found the water, we follow it to find the man sized lily pads.  After searching and searching we find lily pads, sure, but not fit for a grown man. Hell these lily pads are barely fit for a newborn.

It certainly is a pretty scene, what with the ducks, and the lily pads floating all around, but not the giant lily pads we were promised by some guidebook. Stupid guidebook. Oh btw, here is the view from the bridge we walked over on our search for the pond...

After the crushing defeat of small lily pads, we decided to go and get some food at a nearby restaurant we found while inspecting the bonsai garden. The restaurant was called "The Lodi garden restaurant" and sat right next to one of the gates to get into the Lodi garden. The closer we got to the Lodi garden restaurant, the more the sky began turning dark.  By the time we reached the gate, a light sprinkle had started, and we could hear thunder in the distance.
The Lodi garden restaurant is less than 20 feet from the gate, which was pretty fortunate. At the reservation station outside the restaurant a man greeted us as a gentle rain began to fall down all around us. By the time we said "Two please." a torrential downpour began, not unlike the daily downpours in Floriday that creep out of no where.  Quite perfect timing on our part.
We ran to the restaurant and got seated quickly. The food was western, which was kind of a disappointment, and it was also more expensive than we would have hoped. They had the first (and only) wifi I found in India, and I took full advantage of the opportunity and updated the Amsterdam post (see below) that I had made on my iphone earlier.
I took a picture to show how 2-3 inches of rain fell while we sat and ate, but the picture didn't turn out very good, so I'm not going to share it.  The restaurant was a great halfway point for our day, and respite from the rain.  The restaurant was not a respite for everyone however. A worker stood out in the downpour squeegeeing the porch in an empty pursuit of dryness.  We watched him squeegee and felt kind of bad for him, but soon enough the rain slowed down. After the rain stopped, we made our way out to the road again, after taking a picture of our dry rest stop.

At this halfway point, I'm stopping.  I'll continue again tomorrow!

Peace and Love,
Allen