A brief visit to Delhi

So we got the train from Mumbai to Delhi - that was ok... it wasn't that bad really. A bit uncomfortable and a little chilly but all in all it was ok. The couple we were sharing a berth with were quite nice. Retired couple from London who were visiting family. Although she loved to talk...

So we get to Delhi. Schlep around carrying our luggage trying to find someone who didn't seem like a tout to take us to our hotel that we knew was somewhere in Delhi but not quite sure where... So we find a cab driver who will take us to our hotel for RS350 (I think from memory). We thought the hotel was a bit further away than what it was. We were wrong. We could have walked there. So we basically got done... in reality it was about AUD$7 but you always feel a bit silly when you get ripped off.

So we check into the hotel to find out it backs onto a rather large Mosque. The call to prayer was rather loud. It was actually quite a nice hotel (the Broadway Hotel) and done very nicely, if not getting a bit tired. I'm not sure at what point we decided to get a tour but we did. We ended up going to a travel agent and getting them to organise a tour for us. Probably in part because we were a little bit sick of getting ripped off (we still got ripped off but not as much). So we ended up with a schedule that took us through Agra & Varanasi and gave us a tour guide for each leg of the remainder of the trip.

The Hotel was actually really good as because our driver was picking up at 7am - we were up before breakfast was served. They gave us breakfast. It was actually a very kind and a very awesome thing to do.

Our driver from Delhi to Agra was pretty cool. He was a really nice guy and his english was very good, to the point where there was no struggling with accents. There was completely insane stuff we saw on the way like people hanging out of helicopters to clean the top of electricity transmission towers. Snake charmers & monkey trainers. I refused to get out of the car for that one! There's not enough money in the world to get me close to a Cobra. Really there isn't!

Our driver took us to his village. Larry loved the experience - I was a bit freaked out by it. It was rural India and it was quite strange. It was lovely having Chai with his family though and his family were very kind to us. We also got to go to the local school and meet the kids and have a quick chat with them. That was sweet. I actually didn't take any photos of all this as it just didn't feel right.

The drive to Agra took maybe 8 hours or so...

We ended up at a Holiday Inn of all places - which actually did pretty good margaritas from memory ;)