I arrived at Delhi...Hmmmm...International around 10pm, and I think my experience at the airport gave me a good indication of how it was going to be. It was really hot and sweaty, there were hundreds of people busy rushing round everywhere, and it was chaotic. Passport control took around 1 hour as the leisurely staff ignored the mounting queues, and there were electric wires hanging carelessly and dangerously everywhere.

Needing some money I expected there to be banks in abundance as is usual for an airport, unfortunately there is only one at Delhi airport, and it was having technical problems. Two men tried to repair the situation, by expertly plugging & unplugging the machine, alas to no avail, there was no money to be had!

The first thing I noticed on leaving the airport was the dust, it hangs in the air in a continual mist, and chokes the back of your throat, and there was a range of smells in the short walk to the taxi of heavenly curries to unsavoury - literally eau de toilet!

Delhi is an amazing place though and totally indescribable (but blatantly I'll try anyway); you really have to experience it to understand - you need sound & smelly vision to get the full effect. The roads are completely mad, NEVER be tempted to drive here! They have lanes, but does anybody use them? They have lights, but does anybody stop? They have a flow of traffic, but if you need to go the other way you just do it! Also impressive is the number of different things that you see on the road, cars, cycles, motorbikes(most I've seen carried is six people), goats, people, autorickshaws, cycle-rickshaws, cows, pigs, elephants and camels; and you best get out of the way, cos the surge forward never stops. My first taxi ride saw me nearly have a heart attack around 10 times as I thought we would either crash or kill something, but amazingly we didn't, and touch wood so far we haven't.

I spent the first day taking in the tourist sights, but decided I wanted some local authentic indian food for lunch; so the taxi driver dropped me off at some market, and left me there. Noone spoke english, and it was all men looking at me as if I was an alien. Somehow I ended up with Dahl Makhani a really tasty lentil dish, that was absolutely delicious, unfortunately that was where my good luck ended. On my way to dispose of my rubbish in the only bin in Delhi, (that was empty, cos there's just mounds of it all over the streets) I got savaged by a street dog. Ok slight exaggeration, what actually happened, was, a street dog lunged at me and sank it's rather sharp canines in my thigh - either way it hurt. Nice one, my first day in India, and not yet even started my tour, and here I am trotting off to hospital, to sample the delights of the Indian health system. I mean, I know I've been tarred with the old madness brush before, but surely rabies injections is a bit excessive? Well, not wanting to turn into a rabid foaming manc, (you meet too many of them in my line of work), I dutifully donned my buttock, on the stained hospital sheets, and took my injection like a spartan. That done it was straight off for a curry and meet my new travelling comrades - it seems that's the Indian way, time waits for no man - or woman.