Monday 12 June 2006

smelly, belly, errr, telly...

...Delhi (prize being offered to you blogfans who can come up with any more rhyming adjectives). Finally hauled myself out of my Rishikesh 'it's very easy to do nothing all day' stupour (but did go wild one day and dipped toe in Ganges) and via a lengthy bus journey sandwiched between smelly fat man with no concept of personal space (or in fact trouser drawstrings - v. unpleasant yellow Y-fronts moment as discovered this) and strange singing boy I arrived back in the buzzing supermetropolis of Delhi yesterday afternoon. Found myself a hotel with a TV, and not only a TV, but ESPN on it so can watch football matches to my hearts content: GO Serbia and Montenegro!!! Also discovered that due to some hefty censorship can fit about 3 episodes of Sex and the City into 1 hour, v. efficient viewing (although no idea what each episode was about as entire storylines missing).

Oh and some GOOD NEWS, after a brief but painful hiatus as a refugee I now have a passport again - yippeee! I can leave the country at last!!! Oh no no no noooooo. Turns out I need a visa just to leave the country, which obviously carries with it days of requisite paper pushing and stuff so they can be absolutely sure that I am in fact in India at the moment (hmmmm, apparently my presence is not quite enough evidence). Oh and my airline are very keen to give me an opportunity to tour seemingly the entire of Delhi in search of nonexistant but apparently essential bits of paper from random offices that prove that I didn't fly to Bangkok 2 weeks ago (again my presence in their office proved inconclusive).

Here would probably be the space to write a lengthy prose on the sights and 'attractions' of Delhi, but alas not possible, is a Monday so naturally everything is closed and at 40+ degrees if it doesn't have air-con then I'm quite frankly not interested (nice cooling breeze as scoot about in rickshaw akin to opening an oven door); I have however managed to see Delhi Fort (astonishingly very similar to Agra Fort), parliament buildings (suspiciously the only nice and new buildings in Delhi, wonder how the government decides to spend its money) and the spot where the Memorial Gate is (a dust haze has restricted visibility to about 100m) - have a picture of it in my Delhi Guide so guess that counts.

Have taken up playing chess (well have done since I beat a Canadian, Australian and a Kiwi - and what British sporting team can boast that achievement? will ignore embarassing defeat at hands of ruthless Indians). Think high point of week was seeing some monkeys running away from a cow. It's been a slow few days.

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