Delhi Day 1

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020213

What a day today...

With earplugs in, slept through the roaring sounds of Han last night, waking up at 0815, missed the t.o.t. with 15minutes...

Breakfast was good, first Indian food, very nice, bit spicey, with freshly made omelette and thank god, coffee....

1000hrs in the car, off to Jama Rashid and the Red Fort. Amazing experience. a Combination of Iraq, Congo and super friendlyness of people, sounds, noise, smells, smoke everywhere and thousands and thousands of people swarming over the streets, withouet clear traffice rules, missing eachother by centimeters, and with no aggressiveness or bad behavior. Its just the way they do things.

Many people want to shake our hands, want to take a picture with us. We are almost the only tourists, and when you encountre another one, you nod to eachother in recognition.

We decide to walk through the local area, and on a moment pick up a bicicle taxi, which takes us to even narrower streets, the driver showing us the spice market, eventually taking us around on foot. He also decides not to leave us anymore, which becomes a bit of annoying, after we say goodbye.... for fifteen times.....

In the backstreets lots of colours, smells, impressions, fresh spices, dedicated areas for tea, spices, peppers. Monkees on the roofs, dogs everywhere, and we are definitely the only none Indians in the area. I have not felt unsafe for a single moment.

Amazingly, the bicicle driver knows to find us every time we take a turn. When we arrive at the red Fort we are targeted by another guy, who immediately gets into trouble with "our" guy. We leave them argueing and enter the red Fort. Spend a few hours looking around, taking pictures. We make new friends, who want to be - again - on a picture with us, several times. I find it funny, and try to shake everybody's hands.

We take a bicicle taxi (the other guy of the argument hahahaha) back to Jama Rashid, where our real driver is waiting. On the way the chain of the bicicle breaks, and he starts pushing us, telling us that we are very heavy....duh.... another wau of saying that the bill will be higher. Half way he stops ("only two minutes!!") to have his chain repared for 10 rupees (thirteen cents) and off we go again. 100m before the end, his chain breaks again, and we leave him, paying the negotiated price (100rupees, 1 euro 30) and ignoring his argument that it was per person, to look for our proper driver.

From there to Raj Ghat, the crematorium place of Ghandi. At the site, all school children laugh at us and we do high fives with them, saying hiiiiii, hiiiiii...... very funny. Almost everybody at the site wants to be with us on the picture, up to some annoying moments. We simply cannot walk around without being asked to pose with people, mostly men, hmmmmm. Don;t know what to think of that.

In any case, I see it as something very funny, and pose with everybody, shaking hands and smiling a lot.

Off to India gate, to watch the changing of the guards. From there to the presidential palace.

My feet start to protest, it's time to go back to the hotel. Only half an hour, we have to be back in the car at 1830hrs. Dinner in Chor Bizarre, our first real Indian dinner. Very nice, rice, chicken, fish, lamb, potatoes, lentils, spinach and cheese.... and a bottle of wine. Plus the mandatory coca cola, to eradicate any possible bacteria.... Good food, we will find out tonight or tomorrow morning how good....

Back to the hotel, shoes off, Kingfisher beer at the side table, writing this story...

An impressive, busy, funny and satisfying day.... Tomorrow more....

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