Day 2 - New Delhi
Drove by coach from the airport to the Hyatt Regency in the south of New Delhi, a very posh but impersonal business hotel, for a quick wash and brush up. All mod cons but strange toiletries which were various colours but all smelled the same.
Back to the coach for an afternoon tour of New Delhi. We have a local guide in each city and in Delhi we had Sameer, who was very knowledgeable but talked rather too much so that I would drift off in the middle of what he was saying!
Impressions of New Delhi: modern city, traffic chaos with no-one obeying the lanes, lots of mopeds and green and yellow auto-rickshaws (tuc-tucs) (they all run on natural gas now which has cut down the pollution a lot), getting stared at and waved at through the coach window, Flame of the Forest trees with huge red flowers, no cows! The weather was warm but didn't seem hot, more like a pleasant English summer day.
First stop Qtar Minub (sp?) - an Islamic minaret. I can't think of much to say about this so it clearly didn't make a great impression!
Humayun's Tomb - a precursor of the Taj Mahal, set in beautiful gardens with water channels running through. Very lovely. Lots of wild dogs here and little chipmunk-squirrel things, and someone spotted an owl sitting in a hole in a tree.
India Gate - loved this as it was the first chance to interact with the local people. Some of our group stayed on the bus as they 'couldn't face' the hawkers! It was great. Sweetcorn grilled over coals, bel poori carts, people selling everything from candy-floss to nodding dogs to stuffed toy unicorns. Totally bonkers.
A quick drive-by of the President's House and some of the embassies before getting back to the hotel for dinner, which was amazing. Not just because of the range and quality of the food, which was superb, but because the chef was Schwaebisch and they had a whole spread of Schwaebish delicacies! Leberkase, Weisswurst, Sauerbraten, Rotkohl, Bratkartoffeln, Rote Gruetze... amazing! So I had a German dinner on the grounds that I'd be eating curry for the next three weeks, but then tried some of the Indian desserts on offer. I don't remember the names but there were some milk dumplings in a thickened milk sauce, which were nice but bland, and some milk fritters in syrup, which were yummy.
Having had only a couple of hours sleep on the plane, and been up until 2am packing the night before, I was shattered by this time and was in bed by 9pm.
At some point during the night I was woken up by some total nutters from work (thanks guys!) ringing me in my room to see if I had arrived safely and was having a good time. In my jetlagged and befuzzled state I couldn't quite figure out what was going on and I don't think they got much sense out of me! Bless 'em, they are a bunch of sweeties :)
Back to the coach for an afternoon tour of New Delhi. We have a local guide in each city and in Delhi we had Sameer, who was very knowledgeable but talked rather too much so that I would drift off in the middle of what he was saying!
Impressions of New Delhi: modern city, traffic chaos with no-one obeying the lanes, lots of mopeds and green and yellow auto-rickshaws (tuc-tucs) (they all run on natural gas now which has cut down the pollution a lot), getting stared at and waved at through the coach window, Flame of the Forest trees with huge red flowers, no cows! The weather was warm but didn't seem hot, more like a pleasant English summer day.
First stop Qtar Minub (sp?) - an Islamic minaret. I can't think of much to say about this so it clearly didn't make a great impression!
Humayun's Tomb - a precursor of the Taj Mahal, set in beautiful gardens with water channels running through. Very lovely. Lots of wild dogs here and little chipmunk-squirrel things, and someone spotted an owl sitting in a hole in a tree.
India Gate - loved this as it was the first chance to interact with the local people. Some of our group stayed on the bus as they 'couldn't face' the hawkers! It was great. Sweetcorn grilled over coals, bel poori carts, people selling everything from candy-floss to nodding dogs to stuffed toy unicorns. Totally bonkers.
A quick drive-by of the President's House and some of the embassies before getting back to the hotel for dinner, which was amazing. Not just because of the range and quality of the food, which was superb, but because the chef was Schwaebisch and they had a whole spread of Schwaebish delicacies! Leberkase, Weisswurst, Sauerbraten, Rotkohl, Bratkartoffeln, Rote Gruetze... amazing! So I had a German dinner on the grounds that I'd be eating curry for the next three weeks, but then tried some of the Indian desserts on offer. I don't remember the names but there were some milk dumplings in a thickened milk sauce, which were nice but bland, and some milk fritters in syrup, which were yummy.
Having had only a couple of hours sleep on the plane, and been up until 2am packing the night before, I was shattered by this time and was in bed by 9pm.
At some point during the night I was woken up by some total nutters from work (thanks guys!) ringing me in my room to see if I had arrived safely and was having a good time. In my jetlagged and befuzzled state I couldn't quite figure out what was going on and I don't think they got much sense out of me! Bless 'em, they are a bunch of sweeties :)