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2nd - 4th September
Howdy all... well its now my 4th day here in sunny India and wow what a rollercoaster ive had already...
Landed in Delhi on 2nd September - panicking that i was going to be accosted by a million rickshaw and taxi drivers... I walked out into a sea of calm.. and my driver who was taking me to my hotel was sitting very calmly reading the paper!
Little did i know the mayhem was yet to come...
Ok so Delhi is MAD, its hot, its smelly, its crazy, its packed solid with people, rickshaws, buses, cyclists, cows, carts, cars, motor-bikes, street sellers, people living on the streets, rubbish, just stuff and millions of people everywhere.... but for some strange reason it sort of takes your breath away....
Ok so the rules of the road are completely oppostite to those in the UK.... if your a pedestrian you have to get out of the way of everyone and everything.. the buses seem to rule as they are the biggest... unless a cow steps out into the road! And then everyone stops for the holy cow...
I have been to temples, beautiful parks and gardens, eaten lots of curry (and for breakfast) taking a very scary cycle rickshaw ride round Old Delhi.. which is the best thing about Delhi but you couldnt spend too long there.. the streets are absolutely jammed - and most of them are only a couple metres wide - yet - people, rickshaws, bikes, carts, sellers, etc etc beep there horns and just go......
And then there is the smell of Delhi.... heat, incense, spices with an underlining smell of public toilets - they do literally go just anywhere...
I have been harrased (and chased down the streets) every day a million times.. souvenirs madam, rickshaw madam, i take you where you want madam.. very cheap madam.. give me money madam.. come look at these lovely saris madam...just for you madam...i wait for you madam.. it is very hard to constantly say no.. but you have too. It is also very sad to see such horrible poverty.. people are literrally living in the gutters... feeding off rubbish..not right and you feel very guilty all the time...but this is what i came to see for myself..
What just doesnt make sense even more so now i have seen in my own eyes about Delhi (and probaly the rest of India) is there is such poverty... yet so much money is spent on beautiful marble, stone and gold temples and mosques that sit within acres of landscaped gardens... yet people are dying on the streets..
5th September 2009
Train to Jaipur today - just under 5 hours and what a magical tain ride.. first part was slums and peolpe and animals sleeping on the tracks.. another huge feeling of guilt.. im sitting on an air conditioned train eating complimentary breakfast and chilling out whilst they are in a very bad way..
The rest of te journey was miles of fields and trees, cows, camels ploughing the land, goats, people walking along the tracks, villages and towns and the hints of bright red and orange saris dotted amongst the fileds... just breathtaking .. the colour is just amazing
Jaipur is also mad.. old city set within pink walls.. hundreds of streets with people making all sorts of things, from jewellery to textiles to marble amd stone figures - the craftsmanship is just amazing. Jaipur is filled with cows and goats wandering the streets and again filled with street sellers, shop keepers , rickshaws all wanting a bit of me!
All good fun though... found leaving home very hard to start ... but now starting to get my head around this (from the little i have seen so far) amazing country
I will update soon...
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