We leave Delhi tonight after four fantastic and varied days here, so thought we'd catch you up on our adventures before we leave the hotel. Unfortunately we havent found a place to upload our photos yet, but we'll add some as soon as we can. (just found a good netcafe!!)Our first day in Delhi was mostly wandering around Connaught Place, where the city centre is basically in the round, focusing in on a new park in the centre. This made it easy to wander around, and get our bearings. Things didnt feel too busy, but we discovered later that CP (Connaught Place) is a bit removed from everything else. We meandered markets, bought chai from boys on the street, and strangely enough...I had my ears cleaned by a funny little man in a park. I'm not quite sure why I agreed to it...I think I wanted to get into the vibe of the place! Anyway, it worked out fine, and I now have immaculately clean ears! I recommend it! We ate samosa style pastries from a street vendor for dinner, and then an auto rickshaw weaved us through traffic back to the hotel. I crashed out early and we slept very well.
Thursday was a little different. We ended up with a driver...not exactly deliberately...and Siwar became our guide for the day. We went to Old Delhi which had the bustle and craziness that we expected of Delhi. It was great. We visited Jamma Mosque, the world's second largest Muslim Mosque, and several other local sights. We went to the fantastic Silk Palace, where we were treated like royalty as we purchased some local clothing...very nice! We visited Ghandi's Memorial, his tomb set in beautiful gardens, with some of his quotes carved in stone around the walls. We ate lunch in an upmarket restaraunt called Lodhi Gardens. Lush setting with 5 star service and jazz playing. It felt a lot devoid from the culture we were in, but I guess Siwar was doing his best to make us feel comfortable! We picked up our train tix from an agent in CP, fantastic service from a guy called Latif, and avoided a minor drama when our driver attempted to claim commission from the agent! Back to the hote for dinner, and we crashed early again.
On Friday we met Janet who Virginia had emailed before we left, and were lucky enough to be shown the work of Sahara House, which is a Drug Rehab organisation working to minimise the impact of HIV in India. I'll let Gin fill you in on this more shortly, but it was eye opening, and we felt blessed to be able to experience this side of Delhi's City life for a short while. I'm about to get kicked off the Net here, and we should check out...so we'll write more soon.
A little sight seeing today, and then we tackle the trains to head to jaipur.
Love to you all.
Jeff n Gin
