The Red Fort ramparts in Old Delhi at dusk

Mandarin-speaking guide · Delhi

中文

A Mandarin-speaking guide in Delhi

A licensed Mandarin-speaking guide in Delhi costs ₹3,000 for a full day of eight hours and ₹1,800 for a half day of four. With an AC car and driver on the published package, a full day is ₹5,500. Delhi has 6 monuments on this page with their entry fees and opening hours, and the guide’s Ministry-of-Tourism licence card is sent to you before you pay anything.

Full day · 8 hours

₹3,000

Half day · 4 hours

₹1,800

With car and driver

from ₹3,300

Licence region

Northern Region

What it costs

Mandarin guide rates in Delhi

The guide fee is set by language, not by city — a Mandarin speaker is ₹3,000 a day in Delhi and the same in Delhi. The vehicle half of a bundled day is the published 4 hr / 40 km and 8 hr / 80 km rental package, so every figure below is two published rates added together and nothing else.

Half day

4 hours, 40 km included

₹1,800guide only

With a vehicle and driver

Sedan (Swift Dzire / Honda Amaze) — 4 seats
₹3,300
SUV (Ertiga / Innova) — 6–7 seats
₹4,000
Innova Crysta — 7 seats
₹4,600

Guide ₹1,800 plus the published 4 hr / 40 km rental package. Monument entry tickets are paid at the gate and are not included.

Full day

8 hours, 80 km included

₹3,000guide only

With a vehicle and driver

Sedan (Swift Dzire / Honda Amaze) — 4 seats
₹5,500
SUV (Ertiga / Innova) — 6–7 seats
₹6,500
Innova Crysta — 7 seats
₹7,500

Guide ₹3,000 plus the published 8 hr / 80 km rental package. Monument entry tickets are paid at the gate and are not included.

The half-day guide fee is 60% of the day rate, rounded up to the nearest ₹50 — the rule is printed on the rate card so the arithmetic is checkable. Monument entry is extra and is listed by monument further down this page.

Ministry of Tourism, Government of India

Regional Level Guide (RLG)

中文

Language examined in
Mandarin
Licensing region
Northern Region
Full day · 8 hours
₹3,000
Half day · 4 hours
₹1,800

Every licence card carries a photograph, a licence number, the issuing region and the languages the holder is examined in. We send a photograph of the card on WhatsApp when a booking is confirmed, before you pay anything, so you can check the number, the region and the language against the guide who meets you.

Why the licence matters here. Archaeological Survey of India monuments admit licensed guides and turn away unlicensed ones at the ticket gate. An unlicensed "guide" who approaches you outside the Taj Mahal or Amber Fort cannot accompany you inside, which is why the pitch is always made in the car park.

What you will see

The monuments of Delhi, with what they cost at the gate

Every fee and opening time below is the figure published on this site's own guide to that monument, linked from each row. Watch the closures: Red Fort is shut on Monday, Lotus Temple is shut on Monday, Akshardham is shut on Monday.

The Lahori Gate and curtain wall of the Red Fort, Delhi
Red Fort
Qutub Minar rising above the Mehrauli ruins
Qutub Minar
Humayun's Tomb and its charbagh garden
Humayun's Tomb
India Gate war memorial, New Delhi
India Gate
The marble petals of the Lotus Temple
Lotus Temple
Akshardham temple complex beside the Yamuna
Akshardham

Delhi monuments · 1 of 6

Red Fort

Entry — Indian
₹35
Entry — foreign
₹550
Hours
9:30 AM – 4:30 PM
Closed
Monday
Time needed
2–2.5 hours
Full guide to Red Fort
Entry fees, opening hours and time needed at the main monuments of Delhi
MonumentEntry — IndianEntry — foreignHoursClosedTime needed
Red FortUNESCO₹35₹5509:30 AM – 4:30 PMMonday2–2.5 hours
Qutub MinarUNESCO₹35₹5507:00 AM – 5:00 PMOpen all days1.5–2 hours
Humayun's TombUNESCO₹35₹550Sunrise (about 6:00 AM) – Sunset (about 6:00 PM)Open all days1.5–2 hours
India GateFreeFree24 hoursOpen all days1 hour
Lotus TempleFreeFree9:00 AM – 5:30 PMMonday45 minutes to 1 hour
AkshardhamTemple free; exhibitions ₹260 adult, ₹160 child 4–11Temple free; exhibitions ₹260 adult, ₹160 child 4–1110:00 AM – Last entry 6:30 PMMonday4–5 hours with the exhibitions

6 of 6 carry a published entry fee. 3 are free to enter. Where a fee is not shown it is because this site does not hold a verified figure for it, and we would rather leave a gap than print a number nobody has checked.

Mandarin in Delhi

What a Mandarin commentary does here that it does not do elsewhere

Delhi has two Ashokan pillars, moved here in the fourteenth century by a Sultan who had them dragged from Topra and Meerut and re-erected in his new capital. For a Mandarin-speaking visitor interested in the Buddhist layer of India, those pillars and the rock edict in the south of the city are the oldest things in Delhi by a thousand years, and almost no tour mentions them.

Mandarin · Delhi

What your guide covers

Mandarin commentary benefits from the Chinese record of India — Xuanzang travelled here in the seventh century and wrote it down — so a Buddhist site can be described through a source the traveller may already know.

  • The Ashokan pillar at Feroz Shah Kotla — third century BCE, moved and re-erected in 1356, with the Brahmi edict still legible on it.

  • The Ashokan rock edict at Srinivaspuri, carved on the living rock and overlooked by nearly every itinerary in the city.

  • The Qutub complex’s reused temple columns, and the Sultanate’s Central Asian connections set against the Chinese dynastic chronology.

Qutub Minar rising above the Mehrauli ruins

The shape of the day

A half day and a full day in Delhi

Delhi is the only city on this list where a guided day is a choice between three cities that happen to share a name: the Mughal walled city, the Sultanate ruins of the south, and Lutyens’ imperial capital. They are forty minutes apart in traffic and belong to different centuries, and a guide’s first useful act is to tell you which one you came for.

Half day · ₹1,800 guide

Old Delhi in a morning

The only half day in Delhi that does not spend its time in traffic — everything below is within two kilometres of the Red Fort.

  1. 08:30

    Hotel pickup

    Guide and driver together at the lobby. Plan the morning over the first five minutes rather than on the move.

  2. 09:30

    Red Fort

    Gates open at 09:30. The first hour is the quiet one — Lahori Gate, the Diwan-i-Aam, the marble pavilions of the Rang Mahal.

  3. 11:15

    Jama Masjid

    Five minutes from the fort. Courtyard for 25,000; the southern minaret is climbable for the rooftop view over the old city.

  4. 12:00

    Chandni Chowk on foot and by cycle-rickshaw

    Dariba Kalan for silver, Kinari Bazaar for wedding trim, Paranthe Wali Gali for lunch. Walking is the only way in; the guide leads.

  5. 13:30

    Drop

    Back at the hotel, or onward — the guide signs off here and the car stays with you if you booked the full package.

Full day · ₹3,000 guide

Mughal, Sultanate and imperial Delhi in a day

Three cities in one day. The driving between them is what the day costs; the order below keeps it to about 35 kilometres.

  1. 08:00

    Hotel pickup

    An early start matters here — the Red Fort is calm at 09:30 and full by 11:00.

  2. 09:30

    Red Fort

    Two hours inside, finishing at the Rang Mahal and the Khas Mahal with the river-facing side explained.

  3. 11:30

    Jama Masjid and Chandni Chowk

    Mosque courtyard, then the lanes on a cycle-rickshaw as far as Dariba Kalan.

  4. 13:00

    Lunch in the old city or Connaught Place

    Paranthe Wali Gali for the street version, Karim’s for Mughlai, CP if the group wants a table and air conditioning. Paid separately.

  5. 14:15

    Humayun's Tomb

    The building the Taj Mahal was drawn from, forty years earlier. One hour, including Isa Khan’s tomb on the same ticket.

  6. 15:45

    Qutub Minar and the Mehrauli complex

    The Sultanate layer — the minaret, the Iron Pillar, the Alai Darwaza, and the ruins of the mosque built from twenty-seven dismantled temples.

  7. 17:15

    India Gate and the Rajpath drive

    The imperial axis at the end of the day, when it is lit and the lawns fill up.

  8. 18:00

    Drop at hotel

    Guide signs off. The 8 hr / 80 km package covers the day as laid out above.

Orientation. Old Delhi sits in the north-east around the Red Fort and Chandni Chowk. The Sultanate monuments — Qutub Minar, Mehrauli, Hauz Khas — are fifteen kilometres south. New Delhi, with India Gate and the government buildings, lies between them. Humayun’s Tomb is east of centre, close to Nizamuddin.

The fare, stated plainly

What is in the price and what is not

What the fare covers

  • A Ministry-of-Tourism licensed Regional Level Guide for the Northern Region, examined in Mandarin
  • The guide’s licence card photographed and sent on WhatsApp at confirmation, before anything is paid
  • An AC vehicle with driver on the published rental package, if you book the bundled rate
  • Driver waiting time at every stop for the whole package duration
  • Fuel, tolls within the package distance, and the driver’s allowance
  • Help at the ticket counters, including which tier to buy and which gate to use

What it does not

  • Monument entry tickets — these are paid at the gate and the figures for Delhi are in the table above
  • Meals, and any shopping or activity you choose during the day
  • Distance beyond the package’s included kilometres, charged at the published per-km rate
  • Guide or driver gratuity, which is customary but never compulsory
  • Monument camera and video charges where the monument levies them

About Mandarin guides

Working in Mandarin

Buddhist sites are often the reason for the trip rather than a stop on it, and that reorders the itinerary: Sarnath before the ghats, Fatehpur Sikri’s debating hall before the palaces.

Who it serves

Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia

How names are handled

Names are given in pinyin alongside the spoken form, and dynastic dates are set against Chinese dynasties so the chronology lands.

Notice we need

Book 48–72 hours ahead in the October–March season.

The licence, and how to check it

A Regional Level Guide licence is issued by the Ministry of Tourism after a written examination, an interview and a training course run through the Indian Institute of Tourism and Travel Management. It is issued for a tourism region, not for the whole country, and it names the foreign languages the holder is examined in.

Every licence card carries a photograph, a licence number, the issuing region and the languages the holder is examined in. We send a photograph of the card on WhatsApp when a booking is confirmed, before you pay anything, so you can check the number, the region and the language against the guide who meets you.

Delhi is licensed under the Northern Region. Northern Region — Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh

Delhi in photographs

What the day looks like

Photographed on the Delhi routes these itineraries use.

Red Fort, Delhi — Lahori Gate and the red sandstone curtain wall
Red Fort, Delhi — Lahori Gate and the red sandstone curtain wall
Qutub Minar rising above the Mehrauli ruins
Qutub Minar rising above the Mehrauli ruins
Humayun's Tomb and its charbagh garden, Nizamuddin
Humayun's Tomb and its charbagh garden, Nizamuddin
India Gate war memorial on Kartavya Path
India Gate war memorial on Kartavya Path
The Lotus Temple petals, Bahapur
The Lotus Temple petals, Bahapur
Akshardham temple complex beside the Yamuna
Akshardham temple complex beside the Yamuna

Questions people ask

Mandarin guides in Delhi

FAQs

Two, and they are not on the standard circuit. The Ashokan pillar at Feroz Shah Kotla still carries its third-century-BCE edict, and the rock edict at Srinivaspuri is carved into the bedrock. Neither is spectacular to look at, which is why tours skip them, and both are a thousand years older than anything else you will see in Delhi. Ask for them specifically — a guide will not usually offer them unless you say Buddhist history is the reason you came.

Still have questions?

Our team is here to help. Contact us for personalized assistance.

Book a Mandarin-speaking guide in Delhi

Send your dates and the length of day you want. We come back with a named licensed guide, a photograph of their licence card, and the total in writing — ₹3,000 for the guide on a full day, or ₹5,500 with a sedan and driver included.

We send the guide’s licence card before you pay anything. Nothing is charged to confirm.