First 5 days in INDIA!!

Long flights into delhi via paris, no real problems but landed at 11pm after getting delayed and pretty tired. Guy met us from the hotel and sorted our taxi which drove us through delhi at the dead of night nearly hitting about 50 different motorbikes on the way, drove us down a deserted street with cows sleeping and figures huddled in dark alleyways. No tarmac, just a dusty road and then just stopped, no neon signs, nothing, just boarded up houses. Proby, jon and even to a certain extent quick crapping their pants hugging their wallets and wishing we'd paid more for a hostel. Driver took us up a very dark alley to our hostel which was fine, comfy beds even if it was about 30 degrees at night.

Waking up to not a bad nights sleep actually we tried to book a train to varanassi for the eclipse but as it was indian holidays they were all booked as were most ot everywhere we wanted to go so we took an alternative and hired a car for 4 days to do the 'golden triangle'. Delhi-jaipur-agra. This worked pretty well and we got the car free in delhi too so travelled around doing all the major sites while we had an A/C car. Pretty disappointing really but had some good street food which me and quick ate fine. jon had a good go at and proby would just about dip a naan in. Pretty good food and at about 40p nothing to sniff at. This was after the taxi guy dropped us at a restaurant charging about a fiver which proby thought was 'quick reasonable'. None of the delhi sites were that impressive and we left at 8 the next day to Jaipur.

Jaipur was much more hardcore, and we went awlking out ont he first day with bare shoulders - bad idea. A lot of hassle and not even people trying to sell things, just pushing and shouting at us. Much more hardcore city as it was in Rajastan. Next day wasnt so bad, covered up we went to Amer fort which was very very impressive. Great guide for free with the company who had hired the car and he then showed us round jaipur as well and showed us to a load of 'shops' where he obv got comission and we refused to buy anything. The hostel however, while expensive at 4 quid a night, was brilliant run by a former army colonel with 6am yoga on the roof and home cooked food, tho the 3 others all had varying degrees of sickness, which proby still has pretty badly. I'm the only one not to be too bad yet, tho jon is doin pretty well.

Taj Mahal was expected to be a let down but was actually really impressive and we got our first real taste of the monsoon just before with water about a foot deep through the towns we drove through. Taj Mahal was also free due to a festival and about a 5 minute walk from the hostel. Just spending today relaxing and trying to ween proby off his sugar and caffeine addiction - currently on about 2-3 fizzy drinks a day plus crisps, cake, biscuits whatever he can eat while he's making trips to every toilet wherever we go. Very disappointing to be visiting pizza hut after a 3:1 vote to do it before out 18-20hr train ride to Gorakhpur before transfering to Kathmandu where the real adventures should start after doing this tourist stuff. Getting off by myself looks unlikely as the others cant really do a thing by themselves or dont want to try to, but it means i get to decide most of what we do so i'm relatively happy. Definately going to Darjeeling and Sikkim after nepal which is going to be the highlight of my holiday. No real problems now, though an expensive part of the trip to start with, should get cheaper as we go on to more remote areas. The only thing i miss is meat as most areas are vegetarian and Thali's here are a bit repetative and not very substantial. Gto what will be 2-3 days travelling to get to Kathmandu but looking forward to the himalayas. Cable for my camera is in my main bag at the hostel, but will upload photos next week!!

---

Part of trip: South America Summer 08

---