India Part One

Well, we're here, we're hot, and it stinks... I loves it.

We landed in Delhi on Monday, and one of the first sights we were greeted with on the taxi drive from the airport to the Ajanti hotel, was a woman shoving her baby's blistered and pustulous arse through the taxi window asking for money. Being jet-lagged and a wee bit hungover, and cashless, this left us slightly traumatised. Arriving at the hotel was better, though the constant road works outside, apparently 'improving ' the roads for the Commonweath games, would have been an iritation if not for the titanium reinforced ear plugs I had the foresight to pack. We wandered around Delhi for a bit, went to the red fort, then slept for 16 hours.

Woke up to our first Indian breakfast, yum, spicy pancake type stuff, and a Lassi, milkshake / gone off yoghurt type stuff. So far so good for the Delhi bellie. After wandering the streets for a bit, playing frogger on the roads, which was MUCH fun, and taking in the pungent but not repulsive scent of Delhi, similar to Thailand; that heady mix of open sewerage, fried pancakes, sweet, slightly rotten fruit, and fried cat, we went to New Delhi station to book train tickets to Agra. On stepping through the 'local' section of the station, crammed with locals squatting, sitting, laying in the blistering heat and covered in flies, we climbed the stairs (stepping past the young man who was clearly smoking some sort of crack / heroin based pipe) to the 'western' kiosk (air conditioned, comfy chaired, and orgnanised), and booked tickets to Agra.

The train ride to Agra was amazing, they have seats, which fold up to beds, and we slept in a 3 tier system for 2 and a half hours. It was lush, laying there reet comfy, listening to the rain on the roof.

Yeh, talking of the weather, I doubt I'm gonna be the tanned, brown, sun-kissed, sun bunny I thought I'd be. It was overcast when we arrived, bit brighter the next day, today has been sporadic rain and sunshine. Plus I'm covering up to avoid the stares, which isn't really working, especially wandering down Arakashan road central Delhi with 2 bottles of beer in me arms. What a filthy western beer fuelled head hair flaunting hooer. It's wierd having EVERY man who passes you stare at you. I mean, obviously I get that loads in Britain, being dead fit an' everything... but not EVERY man, ALL the time. It's funny when you make eye contact as well, they do that thing where you lift your eyebrows up and down and give a cheeky grin, which does make I chuckle.

Anyway, today we arrived in Agra and went to the Taj Mahal. More of that later, the electricity's just cut out in the internet cafe...