It ain't actually that hot, Mum

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On the flight over, the captain appraised us of the weather in Delhi. '75 degrees and rather smelly' were his exact words. A few minutes later he came on again and elaborated; no criticism of Indian hygeine was implied, simply an observation that in his view the air was very sulphurous.

We touched down at 1.15am on Friday morning. After an long queue through immigration (due to insufficient manpower- too many chiefs...) we retrieved our bags and met up with our hotel driver.

The hotel Ajanta is nice enough, and our room is spacious enough for a family of elephants. They could do with running the hot water a bit longer, and the travel agency in the hotel could back off somewhat from the constant hard-sell, but all in all it's a fine place to stay.

After breakfast we took to the streets for a wander down to Connaught Place. the Piccadilly Circus of Delhi. The walk down was frantic, dodging between bikes, rickshaws, the occasional cow- holding our breath as necessary for the short sprints past the public conveniences. Despite the many groups of men mending the roads, the highways are pock marked with pot holes and piles of rubble randomly dumped in the middle.

We'd planned to ease ourselves into the local fare by visiting the blandest looking cafe we could find. A jalfrezi and chicken tikka later and our tastebuds are screaming for mercy. Chillies even in the naan bread, people, you have to be vigilant.

We then took a rickshaw to the Bahia temple. En route we noticed that our pilot's observation about the sulphurous quality of Delhi air was correct, although it's difficult to be sure when you're travelling in an open-sided vehicle at the same vertical level as every bus and truck exhaust pipe. On arrival at the temple we found it closed! To ease the disappointment we decided to treat ourselves to tea and cake in the Park Intercontinental hotel; forget the tourist trail, this is the real India, sipping English breakfast out of Wedgewood china with a pianist tinkling through Rod Stewart numbers.

Evening temperatures in Delhi are on the parky side, so we avoided the rickshaws and flagged a proper taxi for the trip back to our hotel. I have no idea if the car we flagged down was a taxi- certainly there were no interior or exterior indications to that effect. I think if you wave 200 rupees at anyone driving anything- an ambulance, a hearse say- then- bingo!- you've got yourself a ride.

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