Blogs from National Capital Territory, India, Asia - page 154

Just arrived at my hotel in Delhi. The roads on the way here were crazy! There is literally no rules. People suddenly swerve off road to overtake and are constantly beeping! There are rickshaws, buses, cars and cows all over the road! The hotel room is ok; clean and quite cool but the builders are in next door which is a bit annoying! Just pysching myself up to go for a wander in the caos outside! I don't want to leave the safety of the hotel. The weather here is quite a nice temperature (21C) but its a bit muggy and sweaty.... read more

Well here we are!! We arrived at lunchtime today to be greeted by our pre-arranged car (hurrah!! - a big relief to see that there). Our guesthouse is lovely and quiet, which is quite an achievement in the centre of Delhi! The driving style here is best described as 'may the best man win', with horn honking a popular past-time. We decided to go exploring, so dunked ourselves in mosquito spray and set off. We walked along a massive road for a while and then Sarah successfully hailed her first rickshaw! We even managed to get a fair price, a minor miracle in our tired, dazed state. Our first refreshment in India was ...wait for it... a cup of Earl Grey tea - tres adventurous! The locals have been very friendly and welcoming in the main, ... read more

I was woken up by Rekha’s servant who had brought me tea at 0800. I went down afterwards and Rekha’s mum (aunty) wanted to know what I would have for breakfast I said whatever that they are eating because the whole idea of this trip was to live like the local people and eat what they eat. I has Dosai and white sambal another different dish and it was great. Afterwards I read the newspaper from beginning to end….can you believe this certain days in Jan and Feb there are sometimes 20,000 weddings in India (I guess for a billion people that isn’t much). Do we have 400 weddings a day in SL any part of the year to do a percentage comparison? The trend among 25-30 year olds in Delhi is to buy there own ... read more

I was on bit of a high yesterday after feeling quite pleased that we had survived our first day-but my evening went downhill from there- I couldn't sleep a wink - The hotel is very safe, we dont need to use the doorstops we have 2 latches and can lock the door with the key. But this did not stop me from being paranoid last night as there is a nest of pigeons on the air conditioning unit right outside the window next to the bed - the bloodly pigeons pecking on the window and the gererator on all night has not helped my state of paranoia- I kept on turning on the light and looking on the floor, I though it was a mouse scratching at the door. i would have certainly been out of ... read more

After a long night of not being able to sleep (but I did manage to find Friends on TV!) we both had a really great day exeriencing the calmness of New Delhi which was lovely as there is only so much of the chaos you can take coming straight from the the UK. We had our own personal tour guide and driver for the day who picked us up at 9:30 and brought us back at about 6:00 and I think it only ended up costing a few pounds! He took us to a few temples, which had amazing gardens and architecture and also recommened a restuarant where we had our first Indian meal, again for only a few pounds, and it was scrumptious (although it might have been because we haven't eaten a proper meal ... read more