Day one of our Indian Textile tour.

Take 12 people from 4 different countries who  know little about each other.

Put them on a plane to  travel for 24 hours (or a little less) and they come together to create a memory in a country far from their home. The feeling  is carried forever, the experiences are exceptional and many years of  thoughts of the past are intensified with the images you carry in your heart and your hand.

I don’t always give my memory the chore of storing the amazing things I see and do, I rely on my images. I know how to take a good picture, I’ve been practicing all my life, but if you don’t have the image experiences that I have, you can still learn to take a soul stirring picture to remind you of those wonderful moments.   That’s part of this happening.

Early morning and the sun glowed orange and we took advantage of the cooler part of the day to visit India gate.

India Gate is a memorial to 70,000 soldiers of the British Indian Army  who died in the period 1914–21 in the First world war in France, Flanders, Africa, Gallipoli and elsewhere in the Near and the Far East, and the Third Anglo-Afghan War 13,300 servicemen’s names, including some soldiers and officers from the United Kingdom, are inscribed on the gate.

The area is a sea of colour consisting of the vendors, the visitors and the local workers who keep the site in pristine condition.

I’m not a huge fan of ‘stand in front of the buildings photos’ but you know… it sort of has to be done.

I’m more interested in what is happening around me.

There is a man selling tea or coffee or some kind of hot drink. He has a can with hot coals in it and the pot on top…. it steams and smokes away and he produced small paper cups from a plastic bag hung casually on his belt.

This man is selling  small hand bags for  a 1.25 each… their colors reflect in the sun and his smile lights up his face when we buy 3 and chat to him as friends.

There is a small boy playing in the dirt under a tree while his mother sweeps the ground free of leaves under a tree. I met him when he was about eight months old  old on a previous trip.

I took a wonderful photo of him and when I looked carefully through the lens to my dismay I realised he had a shard of glass in his mouth. Needless to say we removed it very gently and then we get to meet him again.

A rickshaw ride through Delhi old town was full of excitement and for some a little nervousness.

I love the ride, but it’s is indeed sobering.

And then it was a visit to the Sikh Temple, I’ve been there several times before but I offer only images to view because my time is limited.