Of new matras - Be Veg, Be Strong

Day 4 saw us catch the metro to Qutub Minar (oh yeah - we are so local now), a 2000 year old monument.  It was pretty good, but it turns that the word of our fame had spread and eclipsed even the fame of the tour.  Whilst wandering around two young men followed us for some time, trying to build up the courage to ask us for a photo.  They eventually did and this prompted the great photo event of the day.  We were standing in the center of the monument, patiently waiting for people to clear so that we could get a good photo, when a young lady came up and asked for a photo with us.  Half an hour, one baby being handed to us, lots of young men, women and children later we were finally free from our public photo commitments, we got the perfect shot and headed to a quiet spot to rest and eat a banana.  this quiet spot, turned into a viewing platform, with us being the focus of hundreds of school kids mooning and taking photos of us.  Weird.  On the way out we shook about 137 kids hands, all squealing with excitement having touched the famous white women.

We then saw Ghandi Museum and did some shopping, ate lunch at a roof top cafe and booked on overnight bus for part of our trip, but none of this was anywhere near as exciting as the photo session.

Day 5 involved a long metro trip to Akshardham Temple - where we learnt all about a swarmi and have adopted his catch phrase "Be Veg, Be Strong".  We then found the best ice cream shop EVER and ate a triple hot fudge sundae which was TOTALLY AWESOME!!!!!! and then managed to find an old step well, which several people told us didn't exist.  Turns out to be one of the cities serene best kept secrets.  Then home. It wasn't as jam packed as previous days, but fun nonetheless and now we join our tour for the next section of our adventure, even though we missed the group meeting by a good four hours LOL.

So now we've just returned from meeting our tour companions over a delicious dinner. The highlight was the cycle rickshaw ride from hell home, which was bumpy, cold and fraught with danger (especially riding towards oncoming traffic) and which was made worse by the Perth lady telling us two minutes before we hopped on that she had fallen off one today.  We feel very grateful to Korean Jesus for getting us home safely and will be praying to him every day from now on.

Nameste

of Delhi Days, tombs and temples

Wow.  Day 2 and 3 have been jam packed!  The End.


Just Kidding.  The smog has gone to our brains (and our lungs and eyes).  Early morning day 2, saw us brave the streets of old Delhi on pushbikes, which was quite an interesting experience, and getting there at 5:30 in the morning in the pitch black was tricky enough.  The first sight on our ride took us through "meat alley" where whole animal carcasses could be seen piled in the back of cars.  An excellent to stay vegetarian in India.  We saw spice markets where chili in our lungs caused sneezing fits, the biggest hardware market, cows in the street and the main street where the red light district is.  We braved a chai tea from a street vendor - which was great - and then went past the Red Fort and a huge mosque before finishing out cycle tour.

With sore bums and a renewed sense of respect for chaotic driving after risking life and limb crossing major roads on our bikes, we quickly learnt that there is power in numbers when trying to make traffic stop.  Teaming up with Debby the Dutch Girl and Rod from Guatemala, we circled back to the mosque where I got called a "cheat" for trying to sneak my camera in in my bag to avoid paying the ridiculous 300 rupee fee. After getting into the Mosque, Tash soon become the focus of many young men's desire to be photographed with.  We then went to the Fort where again, Tash's celebratory status increased to the point where people often didn't bother to ask if it was ok to photograph her.  She's like my own personal Gweneth Paltrow, but I am pleased to say she hasn't let her new found fame go to her head.  This weird continuance of requests for photos then fanned out to me as well and it seems we are a local interest no matter where we go.

Debby, Tash and I then risked the integrity of our tummies and ate at a local restaurant, which turned out to be great food and no side effects.  We made our way back to have another struggle with the phone guy before heading back to our hotel.  At 4:30pm, I said to Tash - "I'm just goning to close my eyes for a few minutes".  Bring on 8:30pm and both of us begin to stir.  After a minor debate about food, we both cleaned our teeth and promptly went back to sleep.  Thank you EPIC 14 hour sleep!!!!!

Day three involved us trying our hands at the local metro which, after a secutiry check to get on the train, involved us playing sardines in the carriage.  I had to literally pull Tash into the carriage with me and then we hung onto each other in order to stay upright and together in the fully, fully jam packed train.  Thankfully we took the Woman Only carriage because - given Tash's new fame - we would have been mobbed and fondled from here to next week in the carriage with men.  Phew - man handling crisis averted.  Seriously - we think that the whole population of Brisbane was on just our train.  We made it to our destination, had a walk with some street kids who work as part of a NGO set up to assist getting them off the street and then joined again with Debby and Rod for a yummy roof top lunch.  The afternoon consisted of having to walk past probably the worst area in Delhi we have seen so far, where families were living in a park like area, sleeping on the path, cleaning their pans int he gutter and generally causing a smell that was so mixed we can't really describe what it was, except that it turned our stomach.  However, we made it to Humayan's Tomb, India Gate (where more photos were requested, and we seriously engaged in some awesome photo bombing that had us laughing all the way back to our tuk tuk.  Seeing as we are such locals, we caught the metro home(having finally fixed our sim card) and went to our local and sat at our usual table (yes, we are so local we have our own place for dinner - we are Delhi Style"!!) and as we write this blog, we thus endeth our day.