Day 3

All bright eyed and bushy tailed, (well except mum who hard as she tries can't seem to fall asleep), we had breakfast and set off with our guide to explore India. First stop was the Gate of India, basically the same thing as the Arc de Triomphe in Paris except that this one was built by the English for all the Indian soldiers that died in W.W.1. Then it was off to the presidential palace which is on the same street as the Gate of India so they line up in all your pictures which looks pretty cool. Turns out women are in power in India right now, yay for us :) Security there is pretty tight too they have a guy who goes around with his special "detecting stick" and pokes it into flower pots, if they don't blow up, there safe. Then after we got back in our car and drove to Humayun's tomb, the building that inspired the Taj Mahal. We got to see how they restored it using the same techniques that they had used back then, carving and chiseling all of it by hand out of red sandstone. There were a lot of field-trips going on while we were there and they were all eager to take pictures with us. Once we were done wandering around the site we made our way to the Sydney Opera House! Ok no we didn't but it sure looked like it. It was actually the Lotus Temple home to the Bahai religion. The bahai believe that it is not important what religion you belong to, only that you pray, so they welcome all religions to come together and pray in harmony. Amen to that! :) The temple was built out of solid marble which kept it relatively cool and around it were built big pools which also kept it relatively cool. You had to enter the temple bare feet and once inside sit on solid marble chairs which kept you relatively cool. Talking inside was prohibited although mum being chatty Kathy had only taken five steps before she broke that rule. Another rule was that you weren't allowed to take photos and I have no idea how mum managed not to break that one. 

The temple was shaped roughly like an egg and so it had some pretty different acoustics which were interesting to listen to.

 Then after the ten minute prayer session we went to a cafe to meet one of our guides and enjoyed drinks well we chatted over what we would be doing next. Later we tried to go looking for a charger for our iPods but came back empty handed. Simon and I were tired so we went to bed shortly after returning to the hotel while mum and dad went downstairs and had dinner.

-Chloe :)