Acclimatisation - Days 2 -5

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A crazy 5 days. Aneirin arrived at midnight - delayed due to his bag, along with everyone's on his flight, being left in Singapore. Sadly though we held out hope for it's return, we left Delhi without it, and thus Aneirin will have to accumulate his equipment from markets at our destinations to become. If it had happened to me after so much planning I think I would have totally flipped; Aneirin has taken the best attitude and we let out a little boat with a flame in it as a homage to his lost bag - gone but never forgotten. The sentimental moment was abruptly extinguised by a little lady washing herself on the ghat who took a swipe at our vessel, ending a heartbreakingly short journey for our 50rupee boat.

We spent 2 full days in Delhi. Our first was in brilliant weather and we enjoyed over 9 hours of wandering around the old city, markets, alleys and the majestic Jama Masjid. To acclimatise and shrug off the touts, we slippd down a particularly dodgy looking side road ("this is not safe place for you") and wound our way to an intimidating Muslim section, complete with a couple of Pakistan flag murals. Happily, wewere pointed in the direction of the kids play area, where we watched and eventually took part in a game of cricket. Aneirin for hispart put in 2 superb catches; it will come as a surprise to many of my friends that I bowed out for a golden duck after confidently strutting to the wicket. Dignity in tatters, we slinked away to enjoy a sunny day at Delhi's many tourist attractions.

The Jama Masjid - biggest mosque in India (25,000 capacity) - was brilliant. After an aggressive negotioation with the entry guard and a 'guide' (Aneirin had to get his phone out to 'call the police' to get them to bug off) we managed to bribe our way up the public minaret which afforded us spectacular views of the city's vast canopy around us. Directly below us, a near-constant orchestra of horns provides the entirely approproiate soundtrack to whichthe city pulses. The junction from which the most noise eminated was in the process of playing out a traffic-planner's nightmare as the scarcely-followed rules of the world were totally abandonned in the pileup of tuktuks, cycle rickshaws, taxis, cows, donkeys, trailers, and a crush ofhuman traffic filtering through. In one of those happy coincidences that India can pride herself on, this junction on further inspection housed the 'car part' market, where stacks of tyres and wingmirrors teeter ominously towards the pandemonium. On still closer inspection, the common product of these stalls is the replacement horn.

The food as of yet has been beyond description. We sweat and cry our way through the curries but the real culinary delights are to be found in the non-tourist bazaars where the local food is prepared infront of you in all it's smokey and greasey glory. Current prize goes to the production-line that made us our best chai to date (the owner and local customers were very happly that we elected to join them in the tiny shop to drink).

The second full day began with a thunderstorm and was considerably colder than the day before, but we splashed our way around Connought Place, meeting a nice young fellow called Ravi who taught us some Hindi (forgotten instantly) and directed us to a brilliant veggie restaurant where we experienced a ridiculously broad range of flavours, all provided in tiny metal bowls with rice and bread (those experienced travellers amoung us might think he was on comission from this restaurant, but we know he wasn't).

We had booked our train to Varanasi in the morning, and so that evening we found ourselves sprinting through the streets on New Delhi with all our bags, anxious that we'd miss our train. We scampered onto the metro which happened to be at it's most jam-packed (rush hour) so after an incredibly sweaty journey we spilled out to our departure station, bought some Biriyani from the kiosk outside and hopped onto our 3AC sleeper carriage, excitedly noting our names on the side of the carriage door.

The train was one of those quinisential 'India experiences' and proved to be well worth the 600R fare. We were joined in out berth by 2 Japenese, a Korean and an Israeli, with whom we enthusiatically swapped stories, food and facebook profiles. Finally - some like-minded travellers on our budget! They told us they were staying in a Japenese-owned hostel looking over a ghat and said we were welcome to join them; we took them up on their offer and are paying a low 150R for a river-front shared room with out new friends, who turn out to be be very fun to explore with.

As night fell, we all lay in our cramped berths, each traveller rattling contentedly in his own thoughts. Every so often, the haunting manta 'hot chaiii, hot chaiiii' would draw closer, brush past my overhanging feet and clatter away down the train. As I began to drop off, I was gifted one of those 'wow, I'm actually in India' moments which have been sneaking up on me recently. I sincerely hope the reoccur indefinatley.

The tuktuk ('autorickshaw'😉 ride to this hostel was borderline suicidal. We squeezed 6 people, including the driver, into the tiny vehicle which could hadly move with all our luggage destroying the rear suspension. Yoshki got a brilliant video of the drive, during which we very nearly came to a sticky end at the expense of a charging cow. The driver earnt his 120R through some incredible skill employed to keep us all in one piece.

Will have more on Varanasi when I next write, but this first day has been spectacular. On reaching the river bank of the most polluted river in the world, I was struck immediatley by it's beauty. My eyes have had a real wrokout digesting the multitude of colours and peoples that flow along the ghats - the Hindus in search of that elusive Moksha and their relsease from the cycle of reincarnation. Aneirin and I popped into the 'Golden Temple' which was utterly swamped with Hindus in feverish ambulation. We beat a fairly hasty retreat after offering a necklace of flowers to Nandi the bull, but not after getting swabbed in the face with some paint and dodging a few bounding monkeys. The cremation ghats were the most interesting. Hard to digest at first, but then the families of those being incinerated are visably happy - joyous in the belief that their loved one has acheieved enlightenment through the magic of the Ganges.

More to come after the Kumbh Mela - now reportedly 100 million people in one place! Can't wait!

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