Touchdown Delhi ... (By Joe)

Greetings from Delhi (our hotel is up onthe left just after the 'money changer' banner)

We've now had 3 full days here and after a very confusing first 48 hours, we've started to get to grips.

The city has some 17 million residents, 500,000 of which are homeless and another 500,000 who live on the trains (apparently). Its divided into two contrasting parts - Old Delhi and New Delhi.

New Delhi, (see me, left) built for the Government of the Raj, is wide boulevards, fine architecture, monuments and posh hotels.

Old Delhi is narrow streets, traders, markets, activity, colour, noise and smells - the pace of everything is just incredible.

So far we've found all the Indians we've met in both Old and New Delhi to be mild mannered and charming - even the hustlers seem to take 'no' for an answer with grace.

We've nevertheless enjoyed the relative peace of the roof terrace at our hotel on the Grand Bazar. Early evenings watching the sun go down (see left) have felt like a little bit of sanity above what still feels to us like a pretty crazy world.

Delhi has been good (in at the deep end as we expected) and we move on tonight by overnight Indian railways service to Shimla, an old colonial hill fort in the Himalayan foothills - we are fully expecting both the train trip and the mountains to be another big experience.

Joe