Angry and stubborn in Delhi........

---

We arrived in Delhi around mid-day and headed straight for the Paharganj area, frequented by backpackers, kinda like Kho San Rd in Bangkok, with many tourist eatteries and internet cafes, maybe missing the nightlife, but conveniently situated beside New Delhi Train station. Checked into Vivek Hotel, rooms were a little dark and damp...but hey...i guess you only get what you pay for and it did have 'Sam's Cafe' on the rooftop, great place to eat and escape the heat, noise, smells and commotion of the streets below. We ate there alot the first few days, trying to adjust to the Indian cuisine, hoping to avoid the dreaded 'Delhi Belly'...we'd tried nearly every Indian dish on the menu, food was amazing, not too spicy, we thought we were doing great adjusting to the grub...boy had Sams cafe fooled us. Feeling a bit more adventurous we tucked into the street food and ventured over to a more local, traditional eattery, where although the food was great, the heat was stepped up a good few knotches. Sweat bubbles gathered under Aarons eyes, our lips burned as we quickly guzzled down our water and needless to say...there were a few rumbles in the jungle that night!!! Maybe we still had a bit of work to do to get on the food front!!

The next day as we discovered, wandering around Delhi takes a bit of getting used to. It's such an asault on the senses, an overwhelming amount of people, smells, noise, horns blowing, it takes all your concentration to avoid being run over by all manner of vehicles, manouvering around cows and the odd elephant, all of which stop for no-one!! On top of this you have countless rickshaw, tuk-tuk drivers, shop owners and general touts all shouting for your attention. Be warned...if you make the mistake of momentarily looking a bit lost theres always someone waiting in the wings to help/mislead you, hoping to make a few rupees...it's exhausting trying to get anywhere. We did laugh on one occasion when one tout was left red-faced having stopped us at the train station, probably to mislead us, as a backpacker like ourselves approached him shouting, 'you are a very bad man' telling us 'do not trust him...he is a very bad man'...hehehe...didn't take long for him to skidaddle....

I guess it's what you have to brave to see the sights and experience Delhi, to begin with it seems impossible to get anywhere...after a day of it...you get ANGRY....you get STUBBORN...and then you start to go places....

-We visited the Ghandi Smriti museum, a peaceful haven which pays tribute to Ghandi's life, showing the room where he spent the last 144 days of his life and his last footsteps taken to the spot where he was killed. All around are his quotes and thoughts on life, death, religion and his country.

-We saw Delhi's famous Red Fort, where we quickly discovered we were the star attraction...as countless Indian tourists gathered to take pictures of us...instead of the sight they'd paid to see! Aaron...sick of cameras being pointed in our faces...got angry, I tried to be nice about it, but we both got fed up and moved onto the Jama Masjid Mosque..the largest in India and a nice place to be around sunset.

-And we had our first experience of Indian Monsoon...and we think it rains in Ireland....

Enough of Delhi...on to Amritsar.....

---

Comments

[Shelley]

hey guys, pleased to hear you made it to Delhi in one piece.....is the heat a little less ridiculous than Egypt? Fingers crossed the touts/commotion/misleaders will decrease as you head out of Delhi! Aaron, try and remember the photo karma....the more they take of you, the more you can take of others ;) Good luck building up the spice resistance and keeping the delhi belly at bay x