Delhi dancer

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  Delhi, India
Tuesday, January 17, 2006

My arrival at Delhi airport was disappointingly mundane. No touts or people offering strange services approached me. Looks like I'll have to clean my own ears then!
As the taxi drove me from the airport I was struck by how many more new cars there were here than in the cities in Sri Lanka. My modern sikh (no turban) driver explained we were in the light night rush hour of business people coming back from the offices of international companies.

It was quite chilly when I arrived, such a contrast from humid tropical Colombo.

When I left the hotel this morning, I had no reason to miss Sri Lanka. This area of Delhi (Pahar Ganj) is just like the pettah or bazaars of towns in Sri Lanka, but with more interesting clothes!
The narrow lanes are packed with stalls and a constant stream of pedestrians, bicycles,handcarts, rikshaws and tuk tuks squeeze their way through.

I had my my first ride on a rickshaw this morning to Connaught Place to buy my Indian sim card. I couldn't help feeling a bit guilty about the driver doing all the work, particularly when he started coughing and wheezing. Although it's a much greener way to travel in these polluted cities.
I took advantage of one of the overly helpful men who hang around Connaught Place to get directions to a mobile phone shop. (I think lots of them are scam artists and touts, using the line 'you can talk to me, we're all human beings')
Buying a sim card here is not entirely straight forward as you need a passport photo and copies of your passport, but luckily the man in the shop helped me sort it all out.

The following morning I arranged to meet a girl that I met at the airport as she'd booked to go on a bus tour of Delhi. Frankly, it was a scam to get you into the tour office so they could try to sell you a tour. Rather ungallantly I escaped outside to eat my samosa while my friend took the hard sell, it was far to early for that kind of thing!
I was feeling pretty ill with a cold and the bus tour was proving rather to rapid and unenlightening, so we both ducked out and spent a more relaxing day visting the Indira Gandhi museum and the Lodi Gardens.

I took it easy for the next couple of days in Delhi to try to recouperate before moving on to Jaipur. My major accomplishment was finding the obscure post office in Pahr Ganj - it's above the shops and almost completely hidden. However, the post officer was incredibly helpful and even came to the other side of the counter to glue the stamp onto my one postcard.

Hopefully I will see more sights when I come back to Delhi.

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