I’m writing this post in retrospect so the way I write may be different to what it would have been at the time, in parts that will mean diluted frustration but it may also mean that I’ve also diluted some of the positives…
We arrived in Delhi after a direct bus from Rishikesh, after 5 fairly lazy days we were feeling refreshed and ready to tackle the city that everyone warns you about, one that will blow your mind, assault your senses and generally give you a bit of a tough time.
Hmmm…
Matt had sought out a frisbee team so we headed over to where they train and Matt joined them for a session…
We decided to head to Conaught Place, a shopping area in fairly central Delhi, plenty of nice shops but we weren’t really all that interested in buying anything so decided a trip to the cinema was in order, X-Men – Days of Future Past was in, that’ll do! We bought our ticket, had our security check, handed over our bags to the little man behind the desk as there is no chance of (especially westerners apparently) taking your bags into anywhere – you will get followed around every shop that you enter, and when I say followed, I mean step by step behind you around the entire store! Sometimes they’re talking non-stop highlighting the deals they have, others they just follow in silence – I like to think that we smelled really good, I can’t think of any other reason.
Anyway, we got inside the cinema, bought a drink and some popcorn (tried to benefit from the ‘if we don’t give you the receipt you get it for free deal’ but they weren’t having any of it, they were actually just piling the receipts up at the side so they could readily produce it if you went back). We went to take our seats, nice cinema, slightly reclining seats, perfect! After a few trailers the film started but the talking didn’t stop, and it didn’t stop through the whole film. There was an interval (half way through a sub-2.5hr film, during which a cinema man came round taking drinks orders, the chatty group behind us ordered and offered to pay by card, the man kindly took the card and then asked for his PIN number (!) no option of bringing the machine to him or taking him to the machine, he actually wanted the PIN number to then go get the drinks, luckily the guy wasn’t stupid and changed his mind to paying by cash instead! .. Only in India!
The following day we headed to the fake market just to see what was on offer – not a lot…We had a delicious lunch at a place called ‘Deli Belly’…
…thinking surely for a place to call itself that, it must be fairly confident that it was actually safe… The next morning we were rudely awaken in the early hours to stomach cramps and violent headaches… Deli Belly has stricken! This was the day of our flight out of India, Matt managed to leave the room to get some water and extend our hotel stay for the day because there was no way I was getting up for noon checkout, in fact, I didn’t manage to lift my head from the pillow until the taxi arrived to take us to the airport at 8pm!
Our time in Delhi was the last few days in India, and our chance to see the old Delhi, I was really hoping it would blow me away but, to be honest, I was glad to be getting away!
