Hello!

Finally I have got onto a computer that works!

Alot has happened since we left on Sunday, most of which you know about through dads updates on the messageboard. Time to fill in the gaps!

The flight to Delhi was pretty good, we managed to get in a little sleep and i completed my aim of watching Toy Story 3. Only slight downer was the small child who proceeded to cry and scream for the entire 8 hours of the flight. We had two servings of curry on the flight, the first a chicken curry of some description which was pretty good, the second, a cheese based curry for breakfast was pretty grim. All was well though until the pilot announced to us that ground temperature in Delhi was a cool 10 degrees! Having only shorts in my bag i suddenly got the feeling this could be a chilly few days. We were succesfully scooped up at the airport by a young Indian chap and his driver and driven to our hotel 'The incredible homestay' it should be renamed 'the incredibly cold stay'! The street we were on was a sight all of its own, there were gaping holes whre houses once stood and the previous tennants of the deceased house were living in the foundations in boxes, tents anything they could get their hands on, everywhere there were little fires to keep warm and the smell of incense everywherem its a smell that will stay with me for a long time. Delhi seemed a city of contrasts, our area Karol Bagh was a rundown yet busy area with many shops, people everywhere and a few cows, pigs and a goat thrown in. The flip side of Delhi are areas of wealth, big expanses of road with tree lined avenues and chauffer driven cars, i dont think you could understand without seeing it for yourselves. During our time in the capital it became clear that using the roads was dancing with death and we had a couple of close scrapes, mostly in the Tuk Tuks which seem to take a more point and go approach, unfortunately the back end of a stopped lorry got in the way on one ocassion and one Indian gentleman nearly joined us in our Tuk Tuk via the front window, much to the amusement of the driver.

The city its self proved a daunting and testing experience for the pair of us. Not only was it really cold but the fog they kept talking about looked very smoggy to me and made it hard to breath, as a result Em has the worst cold imaginable. We visited the sights Old and New Dehli, the most impressive of these would be Shah Jahan's Red Fort and the Ornately presented Lotus temple on the edge of town. The Raj Ghat (memorial to Ghandi and where his ashes were scattered) was also a stop on our whistle stop tour of Delhi, once again a very well looked after part of city. One over riding theme in Delhi is hassle! I expected some hassle and have been to parts of the world where i have experienced this but Delhi was a different ball game. People constantly coming to you begging or more annoyingly when you are just wandering looking around they come up to you and start chatting, before to long they are telling you about places to visit, trains to book and that Delhi is not a good place to be and then of course they suggest using their own tourist information centre to book your escape from the city. Of course we would never go woth these people but it makes you wary of anyone offering help and a couple of time i think some inncoent indiviuals have been totally ignored by us out of habbit! The worst place for this was Connaught Place, Delhi's answer to Oxford Street. 5 minutes wouldnt pass between people approaching us.

On the food front, we have decided to break our selves in gently as 3 months of curry is gonna be hard so we have mixed it up abit, a curry here, a samosa there and a KFC for good measure in the middle! Will keep you all updated on our culinary exploits throughtout the trip.

Now to the last two days, they have been eventful! We got up at about 8 and had breakfastm packed bags and stepped out into the dusty ramshakled street we were residing in within two minutes we had been accosted by a Tuk Tuk driver, we loaded up and off we went to New Delhi station to get the train to Mumbai. Whta followed was the worst hour i have experienced in a long time. Upon arrival i handed over the agreed 30Rps and started to get out, he then got abit funny and said he had said 300! Well much chatter followed and just to get hime gone i gave him 200, total rip off compared to what we have been paying but it doesnt ammount to much over 2 pounds really. We trudge on, annoyed at being ripped off only to be told by a chap who claims he worked for the railway that our train was delayed due to fog for 9 and a half hours and will probably not run. The station was chaos, people/taxi's/tuk tuks's everywhere all wanting to help. We didnt believe him and found another entrance to the station only to be told the same thing by another guy. We were debating whether Mumbai was a good idea anyway as we wanted to relax after Delhi so we got put in a Tuk Tuk and went to the Tourist Information and booked a flight straight to Goa. Luckily our train tickets to Mumbai and from Mumbai to Goa were re-funded so we lost no money there. Flights were a little expensive but by this time we didnt care and wanted to get out of Delhi. A free taxi ride and a couple of hours later we were on the Spice Jet flight from Delhi to Goa and feeling pretty chuffed. Ems ears went really bad with the flight and her cold but she has now started to sort them out. The flight went fine if not a little noisy and i am writting to you from Palolem where we checked into our tent last night and have spent this morning on the beach. I will update you all about Palolem later in week as it seems interent is pretty good.

Take care, talk to you all soon.

Mike (and Em)