Good evening
It is 22.00 and we have just found our way back to our hotel, but we got here! Today we decided to take a tour of the delhis, there is New Dehli and Old Delhi. Marie got a price of 200 rps for a car for the day to take us everywhere we wanted to go and no shops, that seemed a good deal so when I finally emerged from a wonderful nights sleep I joined her outside. We got in the small car, the chap she had negotiated with got in the passenger seat and he said 'of course you also like to do some shopping don't you?' 'No we shouted in unison, immediately recognising the scam, we insist you take us to the places of culture and nowhere else! Ok , ok he said I do understand we will go only where you want, but we will go via the government tourist office as you will need the train times...etc..etc. Back to the fight we had twice yesterday we both said as we abruptly left the two guys seated in their car. Naturally there had been an audience surrounding the vehicle and instantly we were seized upon by another 'gentleman' who assured us he could do far better and only go to the places we chose. So we were escorted into a little office at the back of his hotel (they all have hotels) and there we negotiated our trip to Rajesthan, not what we intended you may notice but this is India, as we are persistently told. We left with the details to consider his offer and he had sold us our tour around the Dehlis. \
We were taken to a tut tut who took us to meet a 'tour bus' (you are familiar with the very old buses that you see parked up in a lot for donkey years, with the seats all broken) Yep thats the one. So on entering the bus we were faced with six chaps all shouting and seemingly arguing, someone said they had told our escort the bus was full, however eventually we were told to sit on the back row and assured it was ok. It seems there were two spaces after all so we spent the day going from one temple to another cultural experience, the bus was air conditioned although 3 Litres of water later it would be handy to have had a toilet on board!

It was quite interesting, entrance to one of the temples was 10 rps for locals and 250rps for each westerner! All seemed to involve a very long walk through pleasant grounds, lined by security guards (I think that position must be the greatest employer in India) very little lighting, notices or information . No disabled facilities, you either walk and get there or you don't go, often a toilet of sorts and always many street food sellers. One temple was a very modern design, a little like Sydney opera house in style, a load of queuing and removing of shoes, we were made to line up outside in single file to be extremely disappointed when the doors opened and a simple auditorium with hundreds of chairs was before us! No art, no jewels, no colours just chairs. The best was the tomb of Ghandi however it was dark when we finally arrived there, due to having to visit the textile and carpet factory en route.

So we were dropped off in the district we are staying in, found a half decent place to eat and had a beer, in a glass quite a novelty! We did have a nice chat with some younger Indian men both of whom were business men and had traveled regularly, they completely understood our feeling exhausted by the constant scams and felt angry that visitors to their country should go through it, they said if the others ever traveled they too would realize it was not a good way to be. Food was so so, as we left we realised we were not sure how to find our road. There are no street names and one road looks pretty similar to the next, particularly as they were starting to close up. We knew yesterday we had walked straight up our road a quarter of a mile or so and arrived at New Dehli station, we decided to walk to the station which we could see, but figured we must at the back of it. On arrival at the station we clearly were unable to get through to the other side and obviously looked lost so again a couple of helpful strangers stopped. On this occasion they genuinely were not on a scam, it turned out we were at another station. It really is unbelievable that India has such a viable and successful railway network, every platform is packed with people and/or freight, there are many platforms and now it seems there is a requirement for two stations very close to each other, in fact it turned out one at each end of the road we stay in, both being the size of a main line such as Victoria.

So that is our day two. Tomorrow we are heading to the market in the morning and possibly leaving for Rajesthan later in the day.
Sorry I have tried again to post some photos but will not behave, will try again when in another hotel.
Goodnight everyone x x