Three hours on a local bus to reach this city. I spent much of the ride closing the window, as due to the almost complete lack of shock absorbers, the vibration of the bus even on relatively smooth roads meant that every 5 minutes or so the window would have worked itself open about 20cm, I would get tired of having my hair blown in my face and shut it, then a minute later it would slowly start to slide open again... After arriving in the city we visited the palace of the Scindia family, the former maharajas of Gwalior. I [View Full Entry]

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After an early start and only one flat tyre we arrived at Delhi station in time to catch the train to Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. As part of the "responsible travel" ethic of the company we were travelling with, our transport around Agra was by Vikram, a non-polluting electric version of the auto-rickshaw which fits about 6 people. Non-polluting they may be, but speedy they aren't- sounds like they are powered by sewing-machine. Anything to keep the Taj clean and white! We had lunch at our hotel and got our first glimpse of the Taj- on a bit of [View Full Entry]

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Usually in India you can't walk 10 steps without being offered transportation by auto-rickshaw, cycle rickshaw or taxi, so of course when we really needed a taxi at 8.30 this morning (to get to the dentist) there wasn't one to be found. After a bit of fruitless wandering around we took a rickshaw to Connaught Place in the hope there would be taxis there somewhere, and were lucky enough to bump into another rickshaw driver who spoke excellent English (quite a rarity) and understood the address we were giving him for the dental clinic, which was in a suburb way in [View Full Entry]

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Got into Delhi airport about 3.30am, only about an hour behind schedule. Was surprised to find Toru waiting in Arrivals, given the unsociable arrival time I said he should just send a taxi from the hotel, but he came in person after all. We spent 5 minutes or so banging on the roof and windows of the taxi trying to wake up the taxi driver- he had cocooned himself in his shawl and didn't seem to be pleased to be woken up. Quick trip into central Delhi because of the hour, the driver seemed pretty drowsy the whole trip, or perhaps [View Full Entry]

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Aargh, I had typed about a full page (am still a two finger typist so this takes me a while) and then lost it all by using the back and forward buttons on the browser- why does that only happen to me when I have just done a marathon typing session? Anyway I am setting this blog up in anticipation of spending most of December and perhaps all of February on holiday- the first week of December back in NZ for Mum's wedding, a week back in Tokyo working, then leaving for Delhi on the 14th, meeting Toru who will have [View Full Entry]

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