DELHI. 5th-6th October

Arriving at Delhi Airport. Walk into the airport, go through immigration successfully, and wait some time for my bag to show up on the carousel. Then I can't work out where the customs are, and ask probably the only two airport workers in Delhi who don't speak any English. Attach myself to a queue, only to find out eventually that they are people queueing up because part of their baggage is missing. Then discover the customs (it's the one with about a dozen queues of people being called up to a dozen or so desks). No problems there either, they just look at your passport again, and away you go (through a detection system), and out into the arrival hall. Lonely Planet (and Kath) had led me to expect that there would be hundreds of taxi drivers there, baying for my blood (and custom). Actually there were well in excess of a hundred taxi drivers there, lined up on each side, behind ropes, but every one of them was holding up a placard with the name of a passenger and the hotel, or the name of a group. I came upon my bloke at the end of the line, and he was holding up 2 placards, both for the Namaskar Hotel, for which I have booked. I tell him I'll be a minute, as I need to get some rupees, and I spy an ATM in a distant corner. The ATM is in a room with a curtain, and a guy is monitoring entry, so that only one person is inside at one time. I glance back to make sure my driver hasn't disappeared, and notice that the other passenger that he is waiting for has turned up, and is none other than the big (French?) girl who sat next to me on the Paris-Helsinki leg. You can only withdraw 5000 rupees (around 130 Aus dollars) in one transaction, and as the lady in front of me wants the equivalent of 100 euro (6250 rupees), it takes a while, and the curtain guy goes in to assist her. Then when I am at the machine he comes in and starts hovering around me, and gets all smart when I ask where the card is, because the money and the receipt come out first, and the card a lot later, which is exactly the opposite of everywhere else in the world. I took care to cover my fingers with the other hand as I put in my pin number, and have in fact done so ever since Darren at the ANZ suggested doing so several weeks back, but the way this smart alec was hovering around was a wake-up call that I'll have to be super-careful with withdrawals from now on. We follow the placard guy out of the arrival lounge, and then I get put in one taxi, and he goes off with big girl.

The drive to the hotel was (I now realise) a perfect introduction to how traffic operates in Delhi. The taxi is a beaten up old Toyota at least 20 years old, and the driver overtakes everything on the road, and is on the horn the whole way - but that's how it is here, everywhere. Overtaking trucks was especially good for toning up the nervous system, as they tended to only move to the left when he's almost touching the back of them, and then started to sway back towards us when we were halfway past. As a (vain, no doubt) precaution I take care to put my day pack between me and the left-hand side of the vehicle. I remembered Lonely Planet saying not to admit to the driver of a taxi from Delhi airport that it was your first time in Delhi, and later in the trip he points out the Gandhi Memorial, and says something about 'father of our nation'. I put on my deepest voice, and say "Yeah, seen it before, Mate", and then, thinking that I might be overdoing it a bit, I say "first time I've seen it lit up at night, though". We arrive in Main Bazaar, which is the main drag of Paharganj, and stop near the entrance to Chandiwalan, an alley way where the hotel is. Chandiwalan is just wide enough to take bicycle rickshaws and (constantly horn-blowing) motor scooters, but not anything as wide as a taxi. The hotel had said that the taxi would cost 400 rupees (about 11 dollars), and I had separated a 500 rupee note from my stash, intending to give it all to him. Then he said that the hotel would 'only' pay him 400 rupees for the trip, and could I give him something extra. As the 500 rupee note was the smallest I had, I said would he like euros, and gave him whatever loose coins I had left (you get virtually nothing back for coins at a money changers). I was glad to, being somewhat relieved at not being currently impaled to the side of a truck, and of arriving without a knife between my shoulder blades.

I'm asked if I want a 'normal' room (thinks : 'you have abnormal ones?'), or an air-con room. I'm not a great fan (last pun - promise), of any mechanical means of cooling a room, and much prefer to sleep by an open window, so I say 'normal'. If the hotel in Paris was 2 stars, I'd rate this place as minus 4, but I've stayed in worse. The room has been recently painted (with the windows closed), but I manage to pry one open, so that I can do without the large ceiling fan (which would give me a cold/chest infection quick-time). My room is at the front, facing the alley, with the floor about 5 feet above street level, and as promised by Lonely Planet, 'any room in Parharganj that faces the street will be very noisy'. But actually, doing time in hostel dorms has made me immune to a lot of the noise and movement around you that would normally disturb rest, and I welcome the opportunity 'to absorb the sounds of India', which I am able to do in spades.

I probably don't put the light out till 1.30, and sleep and doze till 10 am. The water pressure in the wash basin is almost non-existent, ditto the loo and the shower, but a tap on the wall of the bathroom fairly pelts out water, so I fall into the south-east asian routine of belting half a bucket of water down the 'loo, and bathing from the bucket with a dipper, which brings back lots of memories. I venture out of the hotel into Chandiwalan and then Main Bazaar, and am immediately besieged by shopkeepers, bicycle-rickshaw drivers, motorised-rickshaw drivers, and assorted beggars. I've worked out from Lonely Planet how to get from Parharganj to Connaught Circus, which is the centre of New Delhi, and where the (official) Indian Tourist Bureau is, because I want to get hold of a decent map.