1.1 Billion People and Everything That Comes Along With It...

After a day's worth of flights and waiting at KL Airport, we arrived in the world's second most populated country, India. We've only been in Delhi a day but we're already starting to get a feel for the place. It's funny noticing the similarities and differences between here and SE Asia, or anywhere else for that matter. The traffic is madness but not as bad as the worst of SE Asia. Cleanliness and general organisation here is definitely a step below though. The streets seem to have been randomly placed, with tiny, interesting little alleys darting off in every direction. There are several cows on the particular tiny, interesting little alley that we're staying on. And this morning we walked out the door to find ourselves in the middle of a bustling political demonstration of some sort. Drums were banging and people were yelling and clapping as they walked on by, flags and placards in hand. All in good spirits and absolutely classic to watch.

Our introduction to the city was as expected I guess. The first person we intended to rely on, our taxi driver, tried to scam us. Good old Lonely Planet had prepared us for this though so I wasn't having a bar of it. After a bit of unintentional sight-seeing around the city and a few stern words, we ended up where we wanted to be. The scammers are everywhere, as we've continued to find out, and they're so believable. Even in my cynical, defensive frame of mind some of them have almost had me believing what they were saying. However, as the Lonely Planet also says, if you can look past that, India has plenty to offer. We're also guessing that Delhi (like Bangkok is to Thailand) will be one of the worst places in India for all the bad things, so what better place to start.

As I said, once you look past the bad, you definitely find the good. And it didn't take long. It was pretty late when we arrived but we headed out for a quick look around and a small bite to eat once we found a place to stay. Just round the corner there was a hole-in-the-wall food joint still open. We ordered a curry that we'd never heard of and a couple of naans to share. Despite being easily the shittiest place we have ever eaten (probably even been, come to think of it) the food was fantastic. Oh yeah... and it cost us 30 cents each! Breakfast cost a massive $2 each but that was a fruit lassi and a giant masala dosa (lentil-flour crepe, stuffed with potatoes, onions and more, and served with dipping sauces). I love this place!

Today was a whirlwind tour of the city. We first checked out the backpacker area, Paharganj, that we're staying in. Then we headed down to Connaught Place, which is a massive circular area surrounded by a huge roundabout. Inside there are shops, streets and at the centre is a big park. After that we headed up to Old Delhi on foot. The big thing to see there is the Red Fort, which was completed in 1648, as a show of Mughal power. It sits on a massive, walled site that now contains a couple of museums and plenty of impressive architecture to check out. After having a look round the bazaars (markets) we caught an autorickshaw back. As we've found in the past, this cheap mode of transport is worth it just for the ride. Insane.

Mo Update

Since we are now in India, we felt it was time to start blending in with the locals. So we had our first shave-in of the stupendous 'stache. Disappointing, pathetic and woeful are all words that come to mind but it's early days so hopefully we can lift our game!