Friday and Saturday are a bit of a wipe-out, as I lie in bed till 1.00 pm on Friday, and 1.30 pm on Saturday. I feel as if I'm catching up on sleep that I lost long ago, and there is a delicious luxury in not particularly having to get up early for any reason : not to have to get to (the paid for) breakfast at the hostel ; not to have to be out of the hostel room between 10.00 am and 2.00 pm ; not to have to get up and go to work ; not to have to leap out of bed and immerse myself in my latest chore or project - just to please myself, just to relax, and doze...... By the time I've eaten each day it is getting towards evening, so I just go for a couple of hours walk in familiar neighbourhoods, and then do a bit of internet before bed. There's not really an awful lot to do at night here, whereas in Europe you might often find yourself out somewhere late, here I tend to get back around dark or soon after - there isn't any nightlife! So far I have resisted the temptation to start reading a novel. I tend to look out for the latest newspaper when I go somewhere to eat (the curse of having 'The Age' available at morning tea over the years). Maybe I will take something with me from the collection behind the desk at the hotel - when I start travelling around.
Sunday, I force myself out of bed at 9.30 am, (oh, please, let it not be long before I am lying in bed again), and after a rare 'breakfast' of cornflakes and milk and bread and jam (at what has become my 'regular' - the 'Everest Cave' - where I have been starting the day about 4.00 pm),
I set out for Raj Ghat, a peaceful park where Mahatma Gandhi was cremated following his assassination in Delhi in 1948. A simple square marble platform marks the spot, at which there were some tourists and quite a number of locals (probably tourists too). You have to take off your shoes before entering, and can leave them in the 'free' pigeonholes (at your own risk), or at the 'payment' desk at the other side. I keep forgetting to bring my thongs in my day-pack (in case my shoes take off), but can't imagine that there is anyone out there desperate enough to want my scruffy and down-at-heel Volleys.
After, I headed across a busy intersection to the Gandhi Museum, where it was nice and cool, and I spent about 3 hours. Mainly photographs with captions from his early years as a lawyer and activist in South Africa, through the 'satyagraha' (civil disobedience) years in India, to final Indian independence, and his assassination not long after. Also all his personal belongings, in glass cases, and a replica of the cottage where he based himself, at an ashram in Ahmedabad from 1915-1933. I did a one-semester course on 'Gandhi's India' at Uni, which made the afternoon all the more interesting, having that (now rather ancient) prior knowledge.
This trip was predominently through previously uncharted territory, and I hadn't realised how far I'd walked, so that returning proved to be more tiring than I would have thought, as the day was a bit hotter than the two previous days. In fact, the last couple of nights (due I think to a head-cold from the air-con), I've been sleeping under my opened-up sleeping bag, and one night also wore a jumper. Got all extravagent when I arrived back, and splurged about 8 bucks on a really good sort of mini-Melways of Delhi that I've had my eye on (now that it's getting close to the time of departure). The challenge that I've set myself is to see the remaining things I want to in Delhi on foot, or to get to them by metro or bus, so this mini-Melways is sort of like bringing up the big guns.
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