Smelly Delhi

We awoke ready to face Delhi and take on it's population. As we walked into the street it was 300 times busier than Holi and first off we were struck by the smell; pollution, urine (they go in the street), bad drains and cows. Yes, the holy cows have a free run of the streets and we almost tripped over one chewing curd at our feet. With this bizarre image we headed into the chaos that is the streets of Parahganj and noticed two Western girls wearing a saree from head to foot. Bit tragic we thought, trying to emulate the locals but then we realised that a lot of girls were wearing long baggy tunics - not quite to the extremes that these girls had taken it too but quite beautiful western translations on the uniform of the Indian women. These have largely been adopted to try and reduce the uncomfortable stares from the men and groping that often follows. It's strange though to buy clothes with the objective of making you as unattractive as possible!

New Delhi was a swirling mass of frantic sales pitches, colourful silks and curry smells all of which contributed to a general feeling of frenzied activity. In the evening we went to De Gem restaurant and eased the gorgeous curry down with copious amounts of Kingfisher. Delhi, as we had been warned, was not a particularly nice city and we looked forward to leaving for Jaipur, the pink city on the train the following morning.