Day 31 - On the chittagonggongbangbang express through Delhi

so we've been in india for one full day now and my comments thus far are as follows:

- a curry with 'no spice' = the equivalent of a vindaloo and I can only imagine how hot the hot ones are;
- we LOVE the autorickshaws (AKA chittagonggongbangbangs (bangbangs for short)). They are fun - like being at the fair especially when going round roundabouts. It's amazing and a bit like the buses in Kenya which say 'God first, safety second'...;

Honestly though, India is amazing. I know that we haven't ventured outside the capital yet but the place seems lively, welcoming, interesting, cheap (5 squids for curry, indian wine (v nice!), naans, beer and water and a smile (sometimes)), full of culture (we spent the afternoon in the National Museum) and, most exciting of all, the most incredible fabrics (yes this is Emma writing and not Jon!)

Yes, we know about the fabrics (Jon writing now) and we'll deal with those next week after we've returned from Shimla and the himalayan expedition - it's supposed to be snowing up there so we've come well prepared with shorts, t-shirts (new one bought in Dubai) and suncream. Delhi has surpassed our expectations and we haven't even started to look at the old architecture yet (the Red Fort can wait til next week). We've struggled with the train ticket office (not very friendly people but at least they were better than the touts who tried to send us completely the wrong way when we got to the station) - we've booked tickets on the train to Jaipur, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Udaipur, Agra, Goa and Mumbai (though the 27 hr journey to Goa may be a bit much so the plane may replace the train for that leg).

People are friendly here - someone shouted out 'European with a beard!' as we walked through Connaught Place (to me, not Emma) - that was sweet I thought.

Back to Emma....

So tomorrow we head for Shimla. Hoping to catch up with Mr D Lama for tea in Dharamsala (if he can fit us in) then we'll be coming back to Delhi for some fabric shopping/ sightseeing...yippppeee!

Bye for now

E and J