We've arrived in Delhi!!

We arrived this morning into Delhi airport. We were met by a driver from our hotel who gave us pretty hair raising ride in a small white mini van which felt like it might tip over at the next turn. To make matters worse the driver told us, in his broken english, that he needed to drive fast as he late to meet a friend of his; " you no worry, i am good driver," he said smiling at us in the rear view mirror and paying little or no attention to a red light fast approaching. There is also an unusual situation with the main roads here, not only does no one pay any attention to the lane markings but they have randomly placed speed bumps in the middle of the fast main roads. This led to heavy breaking at the last moment before the bump when the driver realized that we were about to become airborne (plus we were not wearing seat belts). When we began to approach the Pahraganj area we were informed to close all the windows in the vehicle, it was Holi today. Holi is a festival to welcome the coming of spring where people cover each other in brightly coloured powder. The driver was concerned that one of the bags of brightly couloured dust would come through any open windows. He pulled up to the Hotel Anoop so close that our door virtually opened into the lobby, to keep us from being 'bombed'.

We slept a few hours after not really getting any quality sleep on our flight. Our room was stuffy and decidedly run down. We also paid a hefty sum for the room since we booked from London, 450 Rs (Paid for by Denise and Edan with their Christmas gift, thanks you two, wish you were here). After a short cat nap we got up and went for a walk around the local neighborhood, which is a swirling mass of people, colours, smells, shops, cows and horn blowing motor-rickshaws.

Incidentally the hotel has a fantastic roof top restaurant where we sat tonight drinking delicious chai tea, eating curry and enjoying the elevated view over the city. Now it's time for bed...