Smelly Delhi

We caught local bus into the heart of Delhi with Georgie navigating as we made our way back to the Hotel room, first impressions were that this surely cannot be part of a Capital city...mountains of rubbish, stray cows, men pissing freely everywhere and what seemed like an unpoliced road system! It really was a shock to the system, not necessarily in a bad way but so different to anything we'd encountered before - making the cities of Central America seem somewhat civilised. We realised that 11.5 months of travels have taken their toll and we were both feeling rather tired and not like we were up to the challenge of such a strange place! But with a goodnights sleep under our belt we arose the next day back in the spirit of things and headed off to find cheaper accomodation. Delhi's budget accomodation is made up of 100% shitholes, so we had to take the best of a very bad bunch. Sampled our first Indian cuisine from a dirty little eaterie...but when the price is a third of what the restaurants ask it's hard to resist! Explored a little more of the surrounding area finding very little pleasantness in this grotty city. The following day we decided to go off on foot and do some of the recommended sights of Delhi. Well the first mistake we made was trying to go by foot - as the pavements and roads are as one, with no place to hide from oncoming rickshaws, cows, cars, beggars...not to mention trying to avoid stepping in the mounds of rubbish and cow pats! By the time we made it to the Red Fort we were exhausted, the sun beating down on our backs and the sights, sounds and smells we'd encountered had taken away our enthusiasm for sight seeing! It didn't make much difference though, as on entering the Red Fort we were disappointed to see it was actually White on the inside, and not so much a fort as a handful of scattered bulidings behind the huge red walls - the view from outside was far better, and cheaper! From here we walked further into the mayhem of Delhi and eventually finding a slightly more civilised area, at least it had some green open space. We passed India Gate - Delhi's version of the L'Arc Triumph - but our motivation waivered at this point and we sat under the shade of some trees hiding from the intense sun, and reconsidered our plans for the day. We decided we'd had enough of Delhi so instead of continuing onwards we headed back via the Tourist Office to plan a route out of here, and use free air-con & mineral water! Sampled more tasty cuisine that evening - same grotty eaterie as before but with no sign of rumbling guts just yet we will continue to enjoy the cheap tasty food while we can! Tomorrow we plan to leave for the North, aiming to reach the foothills of the Himalaya within the next few days!

Organised chaos at Delhi Train Station.

Outside the walls of the disappointing Red Fort.

All the hair comes off again....just 36p!