New Delhi, India
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
As we are very familiar with Delhi now - from our last trip and this trip - we didn't really have much to do here this time. It was more a case of getting our stuff organised, sending a parcel of goodies back home to England (what will be in it for you I wonder? You will have to wait and find out!) and getting organised to go to Kolkata (was Calcutta)
Jody's cold seems much better now we are out of the damp air so that's good too. Its about 40 degrees in Delhi so a lot hotter than the 15 or so degrees we have had lately.
One of the places on our list of must dos is Dilli Haat. Its a very old market where stalls are run by families (not companies) selling handicrafts from all over India. You can get the best of the whole country here from silks to marble to weaving and wooden items
Our favourite balcony
It all comes together in one place.
Well it was a great place to shop. Just a small entrance fee of 20 rupees (20p) each and we were in. And because you pay a fee to get in there are no beggars or touts etc - just stall holders selling quality goods.
So we obliged of course and spent loads!
Christmas shopping sorted!
And we haven't yet packed up the parcel so I think we are going to need a bigger box!
For our final night in this amazing city, there can be only one place for us to eat. It has to be our favourite balcony we found on our first trip here.
We can sit with the rope lights and look down on life going on in the streets, the cows, the tuk tuks, the henna tattooists, the markets stall holders, the fruit and veg sellers, the sunglasses sellers (yes even at 10pm!) the beggars, the families just everything here fascinates me.
And as we sit and watch, we drink our special pot of tea. Which as it turns out, 3 years late they have done away with the pot and the bone china tea mugs. Now he just pours the beer straight into coffee mugs. Oh well it still tastes the same and it seemed as if nothing had really changed here
Jody's favourite Indian street (and our Hotel)
(for those of you who may not know or remember - if they don't have an alcohol license, they pretend they are serving tea for the benefit on policemen looking up from the street)
As we made our way back to the hotel, Bryan got chatting to a really lovely old man named Bolshan. He was from Bhutan and within 5 minutes we had his whole life story. He kept inviting us for tea but we really had to say no on this occasion as we had to pack and get ready to leave. Bolshan if you are reading this then we are really sorry we just didn't have the time as it was quite late already.
The next day it was time to leave Delhi so we said goodbye to the fish in our room and headed off once again to the train station for our journey to Kolkata. Jody is dreading this as we have heard about how bad it is there (dirt and smells). We will either prove them right or prove them wrong but there is only one way to find out!
Got those train tickets handy???
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