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Published: March 22nd 2008
The taxi to Delhi took a little over 5 hours and we arrived in 'Paharganj' (the area we are staying in) at around half three.
We found our hotel 'Majors Den' without any trouble, and were greeted by the friendly hotelier who used to be a major in the army, and his family.
Our room was shabby but clean and had a hot shower! A Commodity we had not come across in over two weeks.
After refreshing ourselves we settled in and decided to spend the rest of the evening in our room, as we were both shattered after our 5.30am start that morning.
After enjoying a lie in we had a walk to paharganj's main bazaar. The narrow street was teeming with Indians and travellers alike which was nice after feeling like we were the only white people when in Jaipur. However it was also great to escape the hordes of package tourists we were surrounded by in Agra. Delhi seemed to be a happy medium.
After the many bad things we had heard about Delhi, particularly the area we were staying in (whose reputation for seedy characters is widespread) we were pleasantly suprised and ended up having
a pretty good time there. Although one aspect of Delhi's bad press was true - the pollution! After an hour or so of walking the streets our fingernails were black, our flip-flopped feet were caked in grime, and if you happened to blow your nose, the contents of your tissue were likely to be black.
We found a nice restaurant on a rooftop, overlooking the bazaar and enjoyed some fantastic Israeli food - Greg had falafel and Chris had chicken.
For the rest of that day and all thursday we chilled out in Delhi and stayed around the main bazaar.
On friday 7th March (our last day in India) we set out for Delhi's Red Fort.
The driver of the rickshaw we had procured was a bit of a nightmare, and after insisting we go directly to the Red Fort a number of times he still took an unnecessarily long route trying to convince us to visit countless other destinations .
We finally arrived at the Red Fort an hour after departure (journey should have taken 15 minutes at most) and were impressed by the looming walls and gateway of the building.
We were rigorously searched before
entering and were disappointed to see that the rickshaw driver had followed us in, and proceeded to walk around with us, completely ruining the experience and making us both feel uncomfortable.
We had heard of rickshaw drivers being impromptu guides, however ours barely spoke a word of english so was definately a hindrance rather than a help.
The area within the walls was disappointing, especially since the walls were cordoned off and could not be scaled.
As we were leaving we attempted to get a straight answer our of the rickshaw driver concerning the price of the journey. We offered 200 Rupees and he replied 'you like me, you pay, yes yes' so we repeated we would pay 200 Rupees and he made no objections.
The journey back to paharganj was, again, longer than it should have been, permeated by constant offers to take us shopping.
On our return the driver told us it would cost 800 Rupees! An extortionately high price, even by Delhi scam standards. By this point we had had enough and argued briefly over the price before throwing a couple of hundred Rupees onto the seat of his rickshaw and walking away.
That night
we enjoyed another nice meal and put in for an early night, as we had booked a taxi to the airport for 5am for our flight to Bangkok at 8.45am.
Unfortunately the early night failed and we only managed to get three hours sleep before departing the hotel and driving through the deserted streets to the airport.
Arriving at the airport was a wearing affair but we managed to get checked in and safely on board Air India flight AI0348.
As the plane left the ground we couldn't help breathing a sigh of relief to be leaving the madness of India and looking forward to our adventure in South East Asia with great excitement.
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