Dirty Delhi, then rocks in the suburbs

From the frying pan into the fire we go, as we left noisy, dirty Agra and arrived on the noisier, busier streets of New Delhi later that same day. The population of Delhi in 2007 was over 14 million, and it shows. Neither kate or I have ever been somewhere with such a high population density, and we found it a little confronting at times, like when we were swept forward in a sea of people while going down a huge flight of stairs at the train station. People in India dont have the same generous perception of personal space as we do in Australia, and a lot of the time when we were moving around the city it almost felt like we were feeling our way through a mosh pit. People push each other out of the way here quiet forcibly when on foot, and when they are in a vehicle they vent their angst through car horns instead, which come in all manner of tunes and tones. I think the only thing that Kate and I need to remember is that all these different ways of doing things here are normal for the locals and only perceived as a little rude by us, since we have been tought so differently. pushing people around and honking your car horn whenever your engine is running is just the standard, if a little aggressive, way of doing things around here, and none of the other locals involved seem worried or offended at all. I guess you must just tune out to this sort of behaviour if you are brought up with it and you know no different. That doesnt change the fact that i want to find the guy who invented the car horn and drop him into a tank of acid.

Apart from the noise, the huge numbers of people and the dirt and rubbish everywhere, delhi also has got the best food that we have encountered so far in india. We made a visit to the shop which is meant to be responsible for the best Jalebis in India (according to Lonely Planet). In case we havent already mentioned what jalebis are, they are basically swirls of batter, fried in ghee (oil) and then soaked in sugar syrup. They are basically the pointy bit on the top of food pyramid, so we made sure we had our daily serving. delicious little parcels of cholesterol they were too. we also sampled the local tandoori dishes, including the chicken and the best darn chapatis ever (unleavened indian bread).

After seeing a few sights, including the Ghandi Museum and the Delhi gate, which is (another) Arc-De-Triomphe style cement archway, we moved on to Chandigarh, in the state of Punjab. wow, talk about a change of pace. We had room to move, the streets were clean and uncrowded, stuff was not as cheap, and the entire feel of the place was like a western suburb of sydney. I basically felt like I was back in St Marys, only with (slightly) more turban-clad dudes cycling around the place.

We visited the 'Fantasy Rock Garden' in town, and sure, i can see why it is the town's main attraction - since there really isnt anything else worth seeing here. It was ok, just a big area filled with random statues and abstract sculptures made entirely from rubbish and cement. I wasnt all that impressed, but to be fair, i wasnt disappointed either, since a place called the Fantasy Rock Garden pretty much lets itself down just with the title, so you dont really expect much from the outset.

So after yawning our way out of heart-stopping Chandigarh, we donned our dustmasks and have headed further north to the town of Amristar. we are here now just taking it all in, and will update the blog when we have something interesting to report.

till then!
//Brendan