Delhi day 3 part 2 Red Fort

Walking to the metro from the zoo seemed like an exhausting undertaking after walking for 3 hours at the zoo. It felt as if we had been walking for days due to the tropical heat, and well... the walking. We decided to take a tuk-tuk from the zoo back to the station, and decided to take the metro up the yellow line to the chandni chowk station. We figured we would check out the shopping in chandni chowk and then go over to the red fort, which is where the emperors of India ruled many, many years ago.
Chandi chowk wasn't what I expected. As soon as we stepped off the metro we were surrounded on all sides by beggars. Nearby was a giant pile of trash, I suppose it was a dump... although, most dumps aren't in the middle of shopping areas. The shopping honestly was a little overwhelming to me because there was so much going on. I couldn't really focus on one stand because there were so many. We ended up not shopping at all, and instead just sort of glazy eyed stumbling around and looking dumb.
We found the red fort by looking for a mosque that we never found. We basically just picked one direction and kept walking until the red fort was just sort of in front of us. The entrance price was 5-10 times as much for us (as usual) but this time the security guard let us take both of our bags in, even though one was too big.  The red fort is ENORMOUS! There are multiple parts inside to go and look at, and right outside the front gate is a mob of touts and tourists. Most of the white people we saw in Delhi were at the red fort.
The pictures we took of the front of the red fort don't really do it justice. Its something you really have to see to realize how massive it is.

The walls around the red fort seem to sprawl forever, but inside is where the beauty is. Its easy to see from the outside why they call it the red fort.  After passing through security, you come to the main gate.

Inside of this gate is a row of souvenir shops that were woefully over priced. We were even warned by the tuk-tuk driver that took us to the metro not to shop inside of there.

After passing through the shops you empty out to the inner gate...

After passing through the inner gate, there are some statues of guys holding guns, without guns. I still scratch my head at this one.  I took two pictures, but one is blurry.  The blurry guy is holding a rifle, which maybe is invisible? This guy is holding a handgun, which I guess is invisible.

The center of the red fort houses a place where the emporer would make statements and hold court.  It had beautiful arches, and a pretty awesome marble thrown.

The pillars of the center of the red fort are very awesome, even with the obligatory heavily armed security guard milling about (they are EVERYWHERE in the red fort).

The main thing you do at the thrown apparently is to stunt like a boss.  Or in other words, to act super tough in front of the thrown. Mandy and I stood and watched as young Indian man after young Indian man filed up and made essentially the same pose while his friends took pictures. It was actually so crowded with people stunting hard that we didn't bother to get our picture taken in front of it.

As you can see there is also some sort of bird netting around the marble thrown, which Mandy asked, "What do you think that is there for?" and I said, "To keep birds out." and she then pointed out to me, "But there are birds in the net." and we had a laugh as she said, "I guess its to keep those birds in?"
One of the emperors build himself a private mosque on the grounds which was locked up.  I couldn't read the plaque that had the specifics on it because it was weather worn.  Here is the private mosque though...

Near the mosque was a beautiful palace like area called the Khas Mahal, with a sign explaining how the emperor would have elephant and lion fights. 

Elephant and Lion fights? Its good to be the king!
Anyways, here are some pictures of the beautiful and incredible marble of this palace...

And of course, the obligatory heavily armed guards...

While I'm clicking away like a camera happy idiot (pics related), a guard approaches us and flags me down. Do remember these are heavily armed guards, each holding some sort of semi-automatic machine gun.  The guard calls me closer, "Sir..." and Mandy and I look over at this serious guard with a very serious gun.  I meekly reply, "Yes?" He asks me, "What country are you from?" which is a very common question, as I'm sure you'd have guessed by now. I reply, "USA" The guard smiles at me, give me a thumbs up and says, "Looking good."
We walk away smiling, after giving the guard a thumbs up back, and head over to an area where people were sitting.  The red fort had a sort of water fountain design laid into its foundation to feed water to various places around the grounds.  Even though it was raining quite a lot around the time we were in India, all of these water drains were empty. 

As we follow this duct, all the Muslims sitting in the background of the picture get up and walk away.  This leaves plenty of seating, and as we have been walking for about three years at this point (it feels like at least) we take it upon ourselves to take their place and have a break. Shortly after sitting down an Indian man comes up and sits next to us and strikes up a conversation.  If you can call it a conversation that is, because the man speaks little English. I of course speak no Hindi, which doesn't help things. There is nothing quite like that awkward feeling when two people try to talk who don't know any of each others language. At some point in the conversation you inevitably just end up blurting out the words you do know, just to say something. "Toilet restaurant." he would say, or something similar.  Mandy and I would smile, "Toilet restaurant indeed." The man would smile back.
Eventually he had some friends join him that spoke English, and we all talked about where we were from, and who he was, and why he was practicing English and so on.  We spent some time with his friends, and eventually they asked us to pose for a picture with them for their camera, and we of course agreed. I tell you we are in more Indian pictures than you can even imagine.
The ducts of the water trails all lead towards this building, which is supposed to be surrounded by water, but is dry.

That is basically most of what we saw in the red fort, or at least the pictures I thought would be worth sharing. We walked out with the Indian guys we were hanging out with, I didn't write down their names so I don't remember any of their names.  I also didn't take their picture. At this point in the trip, I was still focused on places, not so much people.  Later some of the people we met I got their names and took pictures, but only when they would let me.
After getting outside the red fort, we decided we didn't want to hassle with the rush hour metro squash, so we took a tuk-tuk.  I decided to video tape this ride, and when I find a reasonable way to get video on here, I'll upload it. It will probably a post by itself, and I'll probably just create a youtube account and embed it on here (if I can figure that out).
This was our last full day in New Delhi, and we had to get an early night sleep because we had a train to catch at 8 A.M. in the morning to Agra.  So the next update (unless its a tuk-tuk ride) we will be in Agra, home of the Taj Mahal.  I hope those of you interested in this journey are enjoying this.  I'm updating as I can, and will continue to do so.  Do take a second and realize the depth of this trip... if you have read all of these updates, realize you have read the first city, in the first country of a 4 country almost one month trip.  I promise the other countries won't be as long because they were not so action packed...
Thanks for reading.
Peace and Love,
Allen