Melbourne to Delhi

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Our trip from Melbourne to Delhi was broken up by a 12 hour stopover in KL, Malaysia. We arrived at about 8am and had a maccas breakfast and then checked into a hotel near LCCT for three hours so we could nap and shower. Our friends Mira and Khalid then picked us up from the hotel and took us to the delicious Yemini restaurant near their house in Cyberjaya. We had a delicious lunch; Scott had lamb kapsa and I had chicken kebabs - both dishes came with a massive mound of delicious rice which is cooked with ghee and various yummy spices. We then went back to their flat and met their puppy and then headed to the airport. Our flight had been delayed by 2 hours, so we had 5 hours to fill in…luckily KLIA airport has free wireless.

Our flight to Delhi was luxurious compared to Air Asia, Malaysian airlines seats actually recline! We had a pretty awesome dinner; green salad, pappadams with chutney, bread, curry and rice, peanuts and chocolate. The flight seemed to be full of young noisy children so it was fortunate that it wasn’t an overnight flight. After dinner we both passed out and slept until the pilot turned on the lights and announced that we were to prepare for landing.

We caught a bus across the tarmac into the terminal and went through the swine flu screening process which involved filling out a form and handing it to the waiting doctors. After we collected our bags we paid for a prepaid taxi to our hotel. The taxi queue is so unorganized, there wasn’t any signage and most people didn’t really seem to understand the process was supposed to be. We tracked down the beginning of the line and hopped into a vintage car, fought our way through the traffic and then headed to the hotel. It seems that Indians have decided that lanes are totally pointless and that red traffic lights actually mean proceed with slightly more care than you would if it were green. They also seem to all be engaged in a ‘lets fit as many cars, bikes, rickshaws, dogs, cows people across the road as possible’ competition. That being said the traffic wasn’t any more insane than other parts of Asia that we have been to...it’s just that there are a hell of a lot more people around! We finally crashed In bed 30hours after we left Melbourne Airport.

We spent the entire of the next day relaxing in our hotel room and recovering from our very long journey from Australia. We only left our room to eat at the restaurant in our hotel.
Today we left the hotel at about 9am and set off for the Red Fort…as we were walking an Indian man asked us where we were going, where we were from etc etc and reminded us to be very careful about our belongings. He then suggested that we head to the government tourist office and get a big map of the city and find out what was close and open/closed today. He hailed a rickshaw and made sure that the driver didn’t rip us off and sent us on our way.

At the tourist office we ended up reorganizing the Rajasthan part of our trip and have ended up with a driver for 12 days instead catching several trains. It costs slightly more per day than we intended on spending…but we figure it will be pretty awesome having an English speaking driver/tour guide. They also advised that we replace Shimla with Rishakesh as there has already been heavy snowfall in Jammu and Kashmir and we could end up getting snowed in. After organising this we hopped into a car and headed off to the Red Fort.

The Red Fort, which is in the centre of Old Delhi was constructed in 1638 by Shah Jahan, a Mughal emperor as his residence. Inside the walls, there are a number of buildings surrounded by landscaped gardens. The fort was impressive and the compound was really big. It was also red. Security is pretty tight - everyone gets patted down before entering the complex (the same thing happens with the metro train as well).

After the Red Fort we headed to a Sikh festival - apparently today is the birthday of one of the ten gurus of their religion. There were lots of school bands playing (hmm more banging/playing randomly) instruments and walking through the streets. It was quite busy and there was heaps of free food being handed out (Sikh’s are known for their generosity) but we didn’t get any as we felt a bit bad taking the food away from actual worshippers.

Tomorrow we are catching the train to Amritsar in Punjab which is the home of the Sikh religion. We are ‘couchsurfing’ at a farmhouse just outside the city which should be a pretty interesting experience. We’ve heard really really good things about Amritsar so are very much looking forward to it.

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