Your Adventure Starts Here!

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Visited Countries Map

Ah, finally I feel like I have left England! It took a while - we have been ripped off something cronic and even the ever cheerful-in-a-new-environment-bob was beginning to get irked with all the touts - in fact I thought he really was going to hit one of them today 'yes halo, I am here mister what you lookin for?" "just peace and quiet" snapped bob, how true! but it turned out that all this time we have been in the wrong part of Delhi! We've been in scamming central it seems, and we have only seen the difference now that we have braved the tourist area (thinking it would be worse) and it's great - there's touts but they're not aggressive, and when we walked into the veg market after dark, with all the food blooming with healthy vibes, noone even batted an eyelid. Pure bliss. Plus our room is now cheaper and we have more than a couple of threadbare blankets and broken windows to survive the cold Delhi winters.

I didnt write much for the first few days cos I just couldnt bring myself to - I havent found a capital city I like yet and Delhi is the worst of the bunch. The overwhelming reek of urine at the end of a day as you walk past anywhere with a wall is just too much - it seems to be perfectly normal for any man to relieve himselve by the side of any road, but that amounts to a huge amount of wee - I cant imagine what it must be like when it's really hot weather (yuck).
I'd had enough of the newness of the place within a couple of hours - it probably would have been more bearable if we hadnt been scammed the moment we set foot in the country, and from then until today, we didnt meet a single person who was genuinely friendly.
So I'll tell you about the scam - we had booked a room in Delhi when we were whiling away the hours at Doha airport, and we decided that as we knew nothing abut the country, best just know we'd get ripped off, but get a prepaid (supposedly trustworthy) taxi from the airport direct to our hotel. So we paid by card, and had no money on us - we'd sort that out when we got to the hotel. But the taxi stopped at a 'tourist information centre' and the driver indicated that we had to get out - bob went to see what the fuss was about - bear in mind we'd had about 4 hours sleep in 3 days and were certainly not functioning well - he motioned me over - they said the taxi driver didnt know where our hotel was so they would call it and get directions. They passed the phone on to me and the person on the other end said apologetically that they had never received my booking - they would reimburse my card when it came through but they were full. This was christmas day - we were knackered and just wanted a bed, anywhere! we'd paid for a nice room but apparently werent going to get it. Now, we knew that there were porkies going on - I even had the wherewithall to ask what phone number I was speaking on but despite the hotel apparently not knowing their own number - I still was too worried we were in the middle of nowhere, with no money and these damned travel agents may have something over us. They said the whole of Delhi was booked - the best thing to do was to fly north to the mountains for the cheap price of $60 each and try to find somewhere to stay, or to take a 5 hour taxi to jaipur for $160. Thankfully bob insisted we leave and go walking. They gave us a map and lied about where we were on it, but we still ended up in the right direction and found a hotel similar to the one we booked. We never found our original so that money went down the drain but at least it didnt line the pockets of the tourist information agency eh! Oh and just as we started on our quest for a bed for the night, I looked up to see what their sign said and right at the bottom was written
"Your Adventure Starts Here!"

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