Day 2: January 20

We overslept for 11 hours, and even the bright Indian sun outside wasn’t visible through the thick curtains. We drank tea with the last of the homemade cake and went for a walk. We wanted to go to the Akshardham Temple. This temple was built quite recently, in 2005. It made it into the Guinness Book of Records as the most magnificent Hindu temple.
We got there by metro, which is what we did.

The temple occupies a huge area. True, before entering you must hand over all your belongings, including your camera and mobile phones. They check very thoroughly; they sent us back to the storage room… So we didn’t manage to take any photos there. There is also a restaurant where you can buy lots of different food at prices typical for India. I was already hungry, so we decided to eat first. We had thali (a set of different liquid curries with rice and flatbread) and masala dosa (a thin rice crepe filled with potatoes).

The temple is beautiful, all carved. Inside it is white marble with stunningly beautiful ceilings and detailed carvings. But as Wolff said, it still needs time to settle; it’s too new and shiny.

Despite the fact that it’s sunny during the day, we’re still a little cold. On the way back on the metro there were so many people that in the carriage it felt like my internal organs were about to be squeezed out. In Kyiv that never happens, or maybe I just haven’t ridden during rush hour for a long time.

We even thought we wouldn’t get out of the carriage, because the Indians just start pushing their way into the train as soon as the doors open. Wolff started shouting something loudly, they got scared and stepped aside for a second, and we took advantage of the moment and shot out like corks from a bottle.

On the way to the hotel we bought me a wool scarf, I’ll wrap myself in it like a cloak. It immediately became so warm in it. In the maze of narrow streets we went looking for bananas. We only found some rotten ones and the Indian wanted to cheat us, so we left him with nothing. But we did drink a cup of masala tea sitting right on the street on a bench. Soooo tasty. Nearby, Indians were sitting by a fire.