My attempts at sleep did not go that well at all, so I was feeling tired when the lights came back on a couple of hours before landing. They served a breakfast of yoghurt, granola, and an egg-free blueberry muffin.

It was a long wait to get off the aircraft, but that gave me time to watch the rest of "Now You See Me Now You Don’t” - I’d started watching it whilst having breakfast. The driver for this trip, Raju, had messaged me before I’d even got off the plane. It was then a fair walk to the immigration area, which is a large open space with a high ceiling. They have coloured arrows on the floor to lead you to the desk you need. I made my way to the e-Visa one and noticed other people’s printed e-Visa looked different to what I printed. I read mine again, and realised in the small print it mentions going to a URL to print your visa. I’d printed the wrong thing!

The check-in desk at Heathrow hadn’t commented I’d got it wrong, and had accepted I’d got the visa. The last thing I wanted was to be turned away at the border because I’d printed the wrong thing. I saw someone else loading up their e-Visa on a laptop, and showing it that way, so I quickly logged in using my phone whilst working through the queue, and was ready by the time I reached the kiosk.

When it was my turn, I was asked for a printed copy of the disembarkation form. I’d not printed that nor seen anything to print when I’d completed it two days earlier. Eventually he decided to stamp my passport anyway. They took my fingerprints for a second time, the first time having been on the way to the desk, and then they let me through to baggage. Raju called me over WhatsApp this time, and I told him I’d be there soon. My bag then appeared on the carousel as if by magic, and I went out to meet the driver once I’d found the right exit to use.

I knew it was going to be hot. People I don’t know on social media even told me it’d be hot, and wished me luck with it. Even knowing what Egypt had felt like with a dry heat that was hotter, I felt unprepared for the heat that hit me when I stepped out of the airport. It was like having the heater on in your car on a warm summer day.

Raju gave me an Indian welcome of an orange mala: a garland of flowers hung around the neck. We carried my luggage to his Toyota Rumion, an MPV that would provide plenty of space for the trip. From there, he drove us to pick up the first guide: Karan. He quickly dived head-first into a history lesson for this part of India, but I perhaps wasn’t as receptive to that information, or as responsive as he’d have liked. I got lucky with his early guessing games, something that would continue on throughout Delhi but with less success.

“Do you know how many people are in Delhi?” “I don’t know, about twenty million?” “That’s right!”

A lot of names and dates were being thrown at me, but I just stared out the window, sleepily watching the world outside the car. My watch indicated I’d had a little over an hour of sleep, and I know my watch always over-estimates this. Once I’d woken up more it’s amazing how much of this information had stuck, for now. We crossed the Yamuna River, the largest tributary of the Ganges, for the first time during this lesson.

The original itinerary would have left today empty, so I’d had the idea of taking the metro to the Akshardham Temple, wandering around outside in the part that does allow photography and then heading over to the Lotus Temple. I’d even spotted a reasonable looking restaurant on Google Maps so had plans on where to eat. Unexpectedly, when the tour company sent some details over the day before I was due to fly, I found they’d moved Humayan’s Tomb to today and added Akshardham Temple. I thought this would mean I wouldn’t get the photos I’d hoped for; but without being asked to, they stopped on the side of the road at a spot good for photographing the temple and the large statue of Swaminarayan in his young yogi form, Neelkanth Varni. With the first guide already taking me to good photography spots, I had a feeling this was going to be a good trip. Once I’d had some sleep.

Even with the quieter Sunday traffic, New Delhi’s roads still took an hour to traverse there from the airport. We moved on to the actual car park after that first stop. It was about empty, and once we made sure we’d got no electronic devices on us, we headed through security. I was told about the different Hindu gods seen in the temple, and a little about its history. The temple was completed in 2005, and took 110,000 workers five years using just pink sandstone and Indian marble - not a single steel girder in sight. It seemed he needed me to constantly guess the answers to questions he’d ask, even when I said I had no idea what the answer might be. At times I even tried to think back to GCSE religious education lessons - not that it helped much.

Before entering the main temple, we had to remove our shoes so we’d be barefooted just as Swaminarayan had been on his trek. By keeping to the white Indian marble, it was cooler on our feet, whereas the red sandstone was blisteringly hot already. Inside the main temple, the most notable statue is the gold one of Swaminarayan sitting down surrounded by his successors. There are also shrines to other Hindu gods around this one. Every domed ceiling here is designed differently in some way too.

We reclaimed our shoes from the cloakroom, and headed back to the car. It’d gotten even hotter now, and during the last hour the car park had filled. The guide talked about what the rest of my trip would cover, and reassured me that in this hotter weather I’m more likely to see tigers as they will be wanting to drink more.

Walking around in jeans and t-shirt in this weather didn’t feel great, and it wasn’t yet the warmest part of the day. When we got back to the car, I was asked if I wanted to finish the sightseeing first, or go for lunch. I decided my best option was to get the sightseeing done before it got any warmer. That way once we were done it’d be an air-conditioned car to an air-conditioned restaurant, and then on to an air-conditioned hotel room where I’d be able to get changed into lighter clothes.

Our destination now was Humayan’s Tomb - the final resting place of the second Mughal Emperor, his two wives, and several of his descendants. Shah Humayun, born in Persia,had died after a head injury relating to him carrying books down some stairs, and the need to kneel when hearing the call to prayer. It’s accidents like that which’d make you think science and religion don’t mix well.

From the entrance, it’s a short walk through a garden, and some tall stone gates before you reach the tomb. Karan was quizzing me on the Mughal Empire, and I was failing, probably to his dismay. I was disappointed that it was so busy around, and I knew it’d be near impossible to take photographs without people in them; at least not without getting creative. I heard this is common for India.When I was told this was considered to be a precursor to the Taj Mahal, it made me wonder just how busy that might be. Would all my photos of this trip be full of people?

The guide advised me to stand out of the sun in the shade and listen for a bit, and after that I could be set free to take photographs. The tomb was the first of its kind in Hindustan (meaning ‘place of the Hindus’), with a combination of Indu-Persian design, and construction from red sandstone with a white Indian marble inlay. It had been commissioned by his wife, Bega Begum. He pointed out the large stone dome above the tomb, and how that hid a second smaller dome inside that was used to support the weight of the other. It was an ingenious method, differing from the ‘flying buttress’ method that Europeans had used for stone roofs on cathedrals.

I explored by myself for a while after that, climbing the steps up onto the plinth, and then entering the mausoleum to see the different rooms - some of which had stone tombs. In the distance I could hear the “may-awe” of peacocks nearby. I’d not thought about how the Indian peafowl would be something I’d come across on this trip.

On our way out we passed by the Arab Sarai,the caravan site where the craftsmen and architects that worked on the tomb would have resided during its construction, and stopped at Isa Khan’s tomb. Isa Khan had been an Afghan noble who had fought the Mughal Empire, and had been interred here before Empress Bega Begum had built the one for her husband. It suggests to me that the choice of location may have been a sign of power over those that had been defeated after Huyuman’s exile, and return to power.

I did a complete lap of the outside of this tomb, before going inside, and then across to another building besides it. We left there at 13:00, and twenty minutes later had stopped at Connaught Clubhouse for lunch. I didn’t really want anything heavy, but had panko chicken and chips, and a Sprite. Whilst I wouldn’t normally drink fizzy drinks, I’d remembered I’d previously been advised Sprite could help in hot weather like this. Thankfully the meal wasn’t too filling, and with a tip I’d miscalculated to be quite a bit more than the percentage that’s recommended, it came to ₹1300 - still only the equivalent to £10.40.

I was then taken to The Meriton Hotel, and the room was quite a surprise. I think a suite would have been more accurate, with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a dining room, and a kitchen of sorts. It was far bigger than I needed or wanted, but the second bedroom was sheltered enough from the noise of the traffic that it might just work out okay for sleeping.

After an hour of relaxing I headed back outside, following the road underneath the raised metro line, and climbing up onto the high pavement, to walk up the road in the direction of the Lotus Temple. I was walking slowly, thinking it’d keep me cooler, but I was sweating within minutes. The closer I got to the temple, the busier it got with auto-rickshaws and cars zipping down the road, and people crossing to and from the market stalls opposite the entrance.

I joined the queue to get in, and this took about fifteen minutes to reach the gate, even with the occasional person pushing in front of me. Once inside I was very quick to get to suitable locations for photographs, and then just as quickly left the temple grounds. I wandered past the bustling market stalls that were selling such a variety of things. They were selling everything from momos and Chinese food, to spices and ribbons. Some had fruit piled high, freshly picked mangoes looking incredibly tempting. The smells of incense and food cooking in woks added to the texture of this place. One table, with someone who could have barely been older than ten, had a battery powered tattoo machine. I really couldn’t imagine anyone using that. Surely?

I made it past the auto-rickshaws shouting “metro metro metro,” and onto some waste ground where I could watch the wildlife for a bit, with the ever present background noise of car horns. I thought this might be a shortcut back to near the hotel, but there seemed to be no way out the other side. I did however see Indian palm squirrels chasing each other, and a few species of birds. I didn’t have the right lens on me, but I thought maybe this would be a good place to return to tomorrow if there was time.

Backtracking to the market stalls I then followed them around towards the main road, locating a grocery store by the metro station should I decide I needed one for snacks. I’d have preferred to have bought things for sandwiches to have for lunch during the week rather than have a large meal like I had done today. With this heat though, sandwiches probably wouldn’t last that long. For my evening meal though, I’d already decided to head to Only Bar due to the variety of their menu. On Google Maps it looked like it wasn’t far from the Lotus temple, in an area called Nehru Place - supposedly a large IT market. I weaved through market stalls, staying focussed on my goal, and doing my best to ignore people constantly asking me to look at what they were selling. In doing so, I didn’t really pay any attention to the shops around me until I reached the large open square that the restaurant overlooks.

I found one of the restaurant staff to be a bit pushy - I’d told them I wanted to just see a menu for now before deciding if I wanted to eat there, but was constantly being pestered to go inside and take a seat for the minute I was there. I thanked one of the other waiters, gave the menu back and left.

On my way out of the square I found a place that sold many types of Indian food with different counters for ordering from, but I didn’t know what any of it was.I decided to try one more place, and if that didn’t work out, I’d go to the hotel and have curry. I walked past a cinema, and then next door to that is Nirula’s where I saw a sign for momos. That seemed like a great idea, so I went inside, and then waited whilst the person behind the counter worked on cleaning out some ice cream boxes.

“Could I get some chicken momos, please?” “We’ve not got any, but we’ve got chicken on pizza,” he replied and then went back to working. “Vegetable momos?” “We’ve not got any momos. We’ve got ice cream” “No thanks,” I paused looking quickly at the pizza menu, “I’ll have the tandoori chicken pizza then please.” “Would you like ice cream with that?” “No thanks” “What drink?” “What soft drinks have you got?” “Milkshakes, strawberry, lemon, ice cream…”

Again with the ice cream! I decided not to bother with a drink and just paid ₹156 for the pizza. At that price, around £1.25, you’d assume it’d be just a slice but it was actually a full 7” pizza!

I got back to the hotel room, returning the long way so I wouldn’t have to walk along the main road for long, at about 18:00. I could finally relax, but it was a struggle to not fall asleep too soon.