I never thought I would be cold in Delhi!

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We set out on 1st Janury 2008 with tummys full of free food and a sense of impending doom (well mine was, Duncan's was just full of apple crumble) to Heathrow and following 20mins sleep several screaming children and the worst film in the Shrek trilogy we finally arrived in Delhi.

The taxi ride to the hotel was nerve wracking to say the least; cars, lorries, tuktuks, rickshaws, motor & pedal cyclists and a few horses all vying for space creating at least 50% more lanes than road markings would suggest suitable. Duncan only spotted 3 accidents which I thought impressively few given the number of near misses. I, meanwhile, was playing 'spot the monkey' in the park by the road (The final count was 4 for those who are interested).

Once arrived and settled we decided to brave the train station to buy the tickets for Amritsar that MasterCard hadn't allowed us to buy over the internet before we arrived. It took mere seconds of us being near the station for the comments "but the tourist office has moved across the road" and "you can't be here without a ticket, you need to by one from over the road: I can take you in my tuktuk" (We struggled to comphrend the idea that you would need an ticket before you could queue up and buy a train ticket - even Indian bueracracy isn't that bad). All these comments were made all the more ridiculous when we were standing beneath a sign stating quite clearly that we should not beleive the touts and the tourist office was still operational upstairs. So off we went upstairs.

Buying a train ticket in India is not like buying one elsewhere. Each train has a name, sometimes a route will have two trains with the same stops but at different times of day and these will both be called something different. To buy a ticket you need the train name, not just the fact that you want to go from A to B at about X time. You need to fill in a form to state what you want, but if there are no seats left in the class you want, you have to go back and fill a new form in! You can't buy a ticket either for A to B if you have to change trains. However, there are 43 different discounts you an get, including one for members of the Indian Mountaineering Foundation!

Our first full day was spent exploring the Red Fort in Old Delhi. Getting there we wondered through streets and bazaars. The noise that assults you is phenomenal - its almost as exhausting as the walking round, winding in and out of stalls, traffic, people & cows all wanting to sell things to Duncan, well maybe not the cows. I seem to be left alone more than Duncan and everyone seems to accept a 'no' from me. The buildings and the walls of the Red Fort themselves were stunning, although we did suspect that the walls of the Lahore Gate were in fact plastered to look like large rocks rather than actually being large rocks themselves.

As usual with us we had decided that wandering around during the hottest time of the day was a good idea, so we headed towards the Mahatma Gandhi memorial for a rest in the gardens before wandering back to our hotel for a rest.

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