Our trip begins in Delhi!

We have actually made it to India - this trip we have spoken about for the past 4 months is now a reality and not some intangible idea. We flew from London to Delhi via Zurich, and thank God had no issues with our trip as a record snow storm hit London shutting down most of the city! We arrived in Delhi at about 1am where my friend Manica's father - Dinesh - picked us up at the airport - they are kindly letting us stay with them during our stay in Delhi and it has truly been a Godsend! We couldnt see much of the city as it was pitch black out during our drive home, but what you do notice is the air takes your breathe away a bit as it very smokey smelling with elements of sulphur - a lovely combination! We spent our few days tracking around the city in auto rickshaws and learning how to deal with the crowds, the poverty and being half way around the world. Dealing with the auto drivers is an art- Ed paid way over the odds for a trip on the first day, then a few days later, Katherine negotiated such a good price for a trip that the rickshaw conveniently broke down on the way and we had to walk! All in all it was a good experience to see Delhi but we're looking forward to a slower cleaner pace. Ed's summary of Delhi- bricks, cows, smells and We're Going to Crash. (Again).

We left Delhi for Agra, where the Taj Mahal is - and that's really the only beautiful thing about that city - the autorickshaw drivers are so aggressive and annoying and try to be your best friend then get mad at you no matter how much money you give them, they've got hustling tourists down to an art! We left Agra, and had our first ickyish experience on the platform waiting for our train when some crazy homeless man starting following us around and spat at us and threw matches at our feet - K was getting VERY uncomfortable so we went and stood with another group of white people and this large Australian man gave this guy an earful when he started spitting on them too!

One very funny experince we had was discovering the 'pooing fields' - we were on the train headed from Delhi to Agra and saw a field filled with perhaps 100 people all spread out and squatting along side the train lines. We thought how interesting, I wonder what they're foraging for - until we saw a few of them closer up and caught a very vivid picture of what was going on...it was hilarious - sorry to dissapoint we didnt take any photos we thought we'd look like creeps to the rest of our Indian carriage companions.

Then we headed to Jaipur - we're moving west from Delhi and it was the first city we've been in where we felt like we can breathe a bit - it was clean, our hotel was nice and we met some really nice people - we had had train tickets booked to leave at 11pm for Jodpur, then saw they were 3rd class sleeper ie no A/C, 12 Indians per room and were like no way in hell so we canceled those figuring we'd get the "luxury" deluxe A/C sleeper bus - that left at 11.30 at night and we were definitely the only white people and I was the only female...it was sooooooooo ghetto - Ed and I had a raised sleeper area above the sitting seats covered in dirty carpet with barely any room to sit up and a little curtain to pull across - the bus ride was so bumpy and rocky and I swear there were times I was going to roll out - it was an 8 hr ride - and I was stupid and had 2 large beers, got on the bus without going to the washroom - midway through the journy I had to pee sooo bad and the A/C was cranked on so high I thought I was going to die! So when we stopped and I saw some men getting off I grabbed my shoes and ran off the bus hoping to not get left behind, no washrooms in sight so I had to squat (in the dark) amongst 10 peeing Indian men - all I can say is character building...

When we arrived in Jodphur we found a comparitive oasis and a beautiful hotel - so nice and the city is quiet and clean (relative to Indian terms) - we hired a 'taxi' to drive us to Jaisalamer the next day- we keep missing trains cause they fill up so fast - where we planned to spend Valentines day or the next day in the desert on a camel safari! The fort was amazing- Ed was running around like Indiana Jones talking about what they used to get up to there (for instance the fort was sacked twice in its history and each time in advance the women, when they knew their men had been killed onm on the battlefield and all was lost, would build a huge fire in the courtyard and jump out of the higher windows with their children into the fire).

Right now we're in Jaisalmer- a frontier desert town- about to do a camel safari. We woke up to fog and cold (apparently it has snowed not far away)- a night in the desert could be interesting.

Stay tuned

Ed and Katherine.

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