Published on Dec, 2018
I traveled solo to Delhi and had a few days in the city. I originally hoped to find a group tour of the city and contacted numerous tour operators to see if they had any group tours going but, alas, I didn't find any. Of the various tour companies I contacted, Delhi Airport Services Pvt Ltd had one of the better values for a private solo tour, and the experience was fantastic. The tour included a guide and driver, which is nice because it saved time getting dropped off & picked up right in front of the sites, and my guide Girdhar was super informative, and helped me learn a lot about India, Delhi, and many aspects of Hindu culture and other religions. Akshardham was beautiful and there were virtually no other foreign tourists there, but it's well deserving of a visit. Next was the Baha'i "Lotus temple" and ISKON temples. Then a break for lunch at Lord of the Drinks, which felt like the TGIFridays of India and was fun to experience. After lunch it was around 2pm and rather than fight the Delhi traffic to get to Chattarpur temple, my guide proposed that we change the itinerary to see a Sikh temple instead which was located closer to my hotel and I agreed. The Sikh temple was a wonderful experience to see the devotion of the local people, chanting inside and bathing in a large pool outside, and there was a large dining room where any person, regardless of religion, can come to get a free meal. It was fascinating to take a walk through the kitchens (barefoot!) where volunteers cook huge vats of veggie stews and roti bread is handmade by the hundreds.
If you are debating whether to take a tour, you could certainly either hire a taxi for 8 hours to take you from site to site, or just take taxi, Uber or rickshaws relatively inexpensively, however the experience with the guide was infinitely richer, and I learned so much more about India and the local culture by having my guide Girdhar point out features of the art and architecture, and help show you where to take your shoes off, cover your hair, etc at the temples, since there aren't many explanatory signs and all of the temples are quite crowded and you don't want to waste time in the wrong line. Additionally if you are the only guest(s) on the tour, you can customize a bit as I did. This was a great tour to do on a Monday since all of the temples are open, while some other sites around Delhi are closed on Mondays. Highly recommended!
