Week 36, Delhi, India

Dear Ethel Family and Friends,
Delhi...Wow, what a contrast it was been to our last few weeks in Goa. We caught the train on Tuesday from Goa to Delhi, it was a 30 hour trip as it turned out only 2 hours late surprisingly. We traveled in a first class cabin as it was the only ticket available to us when we booked. It worked out well as we had the cabin to ourselves and could lock the door at night and get a good night’s sleep. The first 6 hours are a novelty, the second 6 are spent reading, sleep for 6 or 8 then by then you start getting bored. Louise was crook the night before the train trip and was quiet most of the trip. The curry I ate on the train got me later the day after.

We left Goa at 11.30 am and arrived at Delhi 6.30 pm the following day. We had hoped to get into Delhi before the sun went down, but sadly not the case. We followed our usual routine of finding a prepaid taxi booth, and after literally fighting our way through the hordes of taxi and tuktuk drivers, hotel touts and would be opportunists, we purchased a ticket that ended up being in a tuktuk. The madness on the streets of Bangalore is magnified by 10 on the streets of Delhi. Its hard to get your bearings, even with a map as the one way streets, roundabouts and circular street systems are so confusing. We eventually found our way to our hotel in the main bazaar with a few phone calls and checks with other drivers along the way.

The following day we decided to get into some serious sightseeing as there is a lot to see here and the place is vast and sprawling. We planned on the Red Fort first and set out walking through the main Bazaar, over the New Delhi Railway station and caught a tuk tuk on the other side to the fort, only a distance of maybe 1 kilometre. However this took us at least an hour and after haggling with the driver we made it. The Fort is a splendid example of Islamic Architecture and took us 3 or 4 hours to complete. The army protects all the sights around the city now and are set up with high profile security. But this doesn’t protect you from the hawkers and touts when you come out. We thought the taxi and tuktuk drivers were bad, but the cycle rickshaw drivers are far worse. They pull their bike up on the footpath and block your path and another will block you if you try to turn around. They also heavy the tuktuk drivers into not taking you, making it very difficult. We made it back eventually but it took a whole day to do the one sight.

We then decided to do a tourist bus journey of the city which we did yesterday, we saw all the sights we wanted too, although it was a little rushed. We also did the Museum here which included a Faberge collection much to Louise’s delight. It’s been a good brief visit to Delhi, glad we came but glad we are moving on tomorrow to Jaipur.

All the best Ric & Louise