I'm finally updating the blog! After only a week in India I think everything seems to have merged into one, and it feels like we've been here a lifetime!

Our flight left Bangkok at 6:30pm, so we spent the morning hiring a boat to tour the back canals with Emily and Josh then headed to the airport. The flight was lovely but it felt pretty late by the time we arrived in New Delhi! We had tried to book a hostel with airport pickup, but when we couldn't find our name anywhere on boards we decided on a taxi (luckily, as after checking email a day or two later we found out the booking hadnt worked anyway!). The 'backpacker' area with budget accommodation looked more like a construction site, and hard-hats and steel capped boots really wouldn't have been overly cautious! In the dark it was a pretty scary walk 100m down the road trying to dodge falling bricks and touts every metre telling us their hotel was, of course, the best. We found a nice enough place down a back alley which was clean enough, and literally fell straight asleep!

After the horror scene (Ok, exaggerated a little!) of the walk in, I didn't actually want to leave the hotel in the morning! Persuaded by Ollie that it wasn't so bad we walked to the more 'upmarket' part of Delhi for some food. It does seem they've decided to knock the fronts off of every house to widen the road, and down the main streets to simply dig up the road all at once! It was a pretty difficult walk! We finally found food in a mall-style cafe but ended up with a burger and chips...very indian! We then headed to the embassy to sort out our visas for re-entry, but this turned out to be a wasted trip as we were advised to sort it from Nepal instead... we will see. Deciding not to waste the 10km tripout of town we headed for some monuments nearby, ending up walking a long distance fuelled by cheap cheap ice lollies until we got back to the hotel. I think it's hotter here than SE Asia, certainly a lot drier, and walking is thirsty work (however, bartering for a rickshaw feels like more hassle than the walk!) That night we found a good (if a little expensive) restaurant for dinner and ate lots of real Indian food, which was super yummy and a great change for Thailand and the likes (for me especially as the whole menu was vegi!)

The next day was dedicated to sightseeing so we set out to see the Friday Mosque (every town has one of these, but it's pretty all the same) and the Red Fort. We risked the street food and ate tasty samosas for lunch from a really friendly vendor, who even re-fried the things to make sure they were germ free for us :) We were a bit shocked that foreigners are expected to pay around 50x the price to visit monuments here! It wouldn't be bad if it went to the people who need it, but it seems to go to government officials instead :(

It took us a long time to find food that evening, but we found a south-indian chain restuarant after walking a long way (also all vegi :) ) and bought some cake/sweets for the train ride the next day too!