A quick rundown on where we've been so far:
Feb 5 to 10 - Delhi/Agra
Feb 10 to 12 - Jaipur
Feb 13 to 17 - Pushkar
Feb 18 (tomorrow) - Udaipur
Further detail to be provided at length later!
Today is actually day 11. But in India time is an illusion, at best a rough guideline! We have hardly stopped since we arrived and only now have taken the time to sit down at the PC and write something.
Day 1 was a short one, starting with our arrival at Indira Gandhi International Airport. We needn't have worried about the auto rickshaw scrum out the front. Our hotel knew only my first name but he was standing there right on schedule in the arrival hall, and the scrum we expected was more a disorderly queue.
We got to our hotel and crashed. Mid range hotels, based on our vast breadth of experience in India may or may not offer hot water, toilet paper and towels. Fortunately, our first night's hotel, in the somewhat seedy marketplace near the New Delhi Railway Station called Paharganj offered all three. We had a great view of the street from 3 floors up, but the noise didn't really stop. With late night puja in the temple across the street, traffic, horns, and the call to prayer from the mosque and the market waking up at dawn, we didn't get much sleep.
We spent the first few days familiarising ourselves with the essential experiences of arrival in Delhi. These include:
1. Being stared at. All men, some women, all the time and at length.
2. Being offered transport. Repeatedly, and by transport providers who follow you the entire length of the street you are walking along, repeating their offer just to make sure you don't happen to suddenly change your mind.
3. Being scammed. Our first taste of this was on the first full day at Connaught Place...we'll leave that for the next instalment.
To keep you busy in the meantime, there are some photos up at www.flickr.com. Do a search on username anarkali.
