ByE Bye ENglANd. HeLLo WOrlD!!!

13TH FEB 2012: SMELLY DELHI

After emotional Heathrow farewell from the whole Haynes clang (G-Unit couldn't cross the airport entrance, so waved them off at the illegal bus/lorry/taxi drop off and trekked to Terminal 3 from there-good memory of one last Haynes car navigation row!) was onboard my Virgin Atlantic flight to Delhi. Had a spare seat next to me, perfect kick back room for my night flight but got transformed into the social epicentre for all Indian passengers. On several occasions awoke to a bindied woman or turbaned man just watching me sleep,not terrifying at all. Had my first curry alla Virgin with soggy poppadums and a masala omlette for breakfast. Not the best way to get into Indian food but was just warming up really. Think I averaged a solid 45 minutes sleep as was stacking up on nightmares about my fellow travel bud Michelle Swann not being at the aiport. The fact that Hannah had pointed out there were 2 airports in Delhi about 2 hours before my boarding time didn't help the situation one bit.
But there she was her shiney face waiting for me at passport control. People had given me code red warnings of Delhi airport, expected limbs and bodies everywhere but in fact it was delightful, too clean if anything! Followed Kate De Mont's (who we would be staying with) directions and caught our first prepaid taxi to their house at Defence Colony Market, a great pad (beds pretty solid-think they must all train for karate out here.) Braved it and got our first rickshaw to Humayuns tomb. Found the most athletic boy on his bike which turned out to have a flat tyre. Not going to lie we had no idea where we were going or how much to charge so agreed 100R (Lonely Planet ALWAYS AGREE PRICE FIRST) and he was pretty willing. It was like the scene in Finding Nemo where the fish who has no memory leads the other fish. He kept looking back at us to check it we had sussed we were just being driven in a circuit but we were both so concerned about the health and safety of the whole thing what would we know. The roads seem to have no rules, a horn acts as indicator, steering wheel and traffic light. Most traffic lights flicker red to amber so its pretty chilled. We may as well of been walking along the M4. He dropped us in the middle of a market (Lajput Nadar) which was about 40minutes in the other direction from our destination. "It just through there." LIAR. Ended up going for a sturdy autorickshaw which dropped us directly outside the gates. It was 4pm adn the sun was just going down and everything was pink. The tomb was empty and there was so much space to wander, tomb based on the Taj Mahal.

Headed onto Hazrat Nizam-ud-dih Dargh. (try saying that in a hurry) Lonely Planet made it looked too easy, crossed one of those motorway roads and walked until the stench of urine started to get stronger. Slums to our left and children and one particular man in a wheelchair with no limbs going full pelt down this motorway, he had the hots for Mikki. We jumped into an autorickshaw back to our pad. The jet lagg had kicked and that complete high to a pretty scary low freaked us out. Nothing a hard bed wouldn't sort.