Pix

Caught the metro from Karol Bagh (my local stop) to New Delhi. A thing about the metro trains

• they are modern and very similar if not identical to those in Singapore, complete with same electronic signage
• they come every two minutes and have microchip tickets, once again Sydney get your shit together!!!
• the last carriages are usually reserved for women. I found this out the hard way. "oh lookie this last carriage is just so colourful and pretty wow!!! oh wait...why am i the only guy here...i think i read about this somewhere...". Do not enter the last carriage! Ultimate faux pas..
• Cost for three stops was 10 rupees (55 to $1AUD)

Below are photos of the older and main area of New Delhi station where the majority of the trains run. This is different to the metro I've mentioned above which only services I think two major lines. Although it's the same station, walking from the metro area to where I shot these took me a good 20 minutes. It was again a bit shock to walk out of the modern metro area onto the street and you're straight back into dirt roads, full of rickshaws, public urinals which consists of a wall, beggars, and really annoying people.

 

The bridge where I took this from was only 43.7% covered by railings. Possible that pieces were stolen and sold for scrap metal. If you look at the first pic the little rooftop on the right is littered with black rubber insulation tubing which looks a lot like that which is used to insulate railway copper. Copper theft at railways is a problem in every country as it's quite valuable as a metal but not quite difficult to steal.

 

 

Lunch at Rajiv Chowk station. Not sure what this place was but the burgers are good and the fries taste exactly like what they have back home. Ahh memories. There was a sweet brown liquid in that cup and drinking it made my nose feel funny and I burped a lot after.

 

Today I also met with the Aussie crew who I'll be riding with in India on a Himalayan tour. We lunched at a place called I-cant-remember where all the Indians are dressed up as Mexican cowboys...but with empty holsters. Well that outfit ended prematurely. The food was ok but we were so paranoid of getting Delhi Belly (a euphemism for deathly food poisoning that equates to you having to get an extension lead for your phone charger so it reaches the toilet so you don't get bored...) so we only ate the vegetarian stuff. I saw the chef making the taco with his hands, no gloves, and thought "oh that looks really yum but that's ok, vegetarian means human sweat can not be consumed".

After we left the 10 of us approached 5 auto-rickshaws and offered them 100rupees each to take us back to the hotel. They instantly accepted the offer without any scoffing at the price which really means we paid too much but was still under $2. The official government regulated rate is 25 rupees for the start of the meter, which includes 2kms. Every km after is 10 rupees. It seems if a tourist ever offers anything less than double this the driver will refuse and the walking away trick won't work in really busy areas. The other drivers will likely refuse too, and some guy on the street told me they work as a syndicate so they've regulated their own internal exorbitant prices. Anyway I can't remember if we told them it was a race but they sure took it like one and they just went crazy. They gunned it down the straights and the little .76 pony power engines hurled us through traffic. Once again I felt like I was a floating leaf weaving its way down stream through a rock-pool, coming so close to crashing but never quite. It was like a dance with the constant honking in the background giving us a beat to lane-split to.

Race leader ahead. I was inside coating potatoes in needles ready to throw at the driver.

 

Battle for first places between rickshaw without advertising and rickshaw with advertising.

 

 

 

Someone trying to make it go faster with arm power. I think you need a minimum of two arms.

 

 

 

My race driver. For an old guy he is pretty quick on the brakes.

 

 

 

Having a splash around. Apparently a few seconds after this photo he ran up to one of the gang and tried to grab their pants ... not sure why.

 

 

 

Ravens here have a beautiful ash-grey neck. Ravens are one of the smartest birds in the world.

 

 

 

Don't know if this guy was high as a kite or critically ill. But he lay there only moving slightly.

 

 

 

Man love. I don't think they're gay I think that's just how it goes here. Live your dreams!!

 

 

 

After all the walking today the group split up, half went home and half trudged on in search of land. We soon found land and a suitable watering hole being a bar that had a happy hour, two longnecks for $4. Caution: two longnecks when you are DEHYDRATED is a very quick way to get happy. Do not recommend you do this and operate heavy machinery (or even light machinery like an epilator or nose-hair trimmer). Nonetheless getting a little wobbly made everything that previously irked us seem so funny now. People were smiling at us and waving because we were laughing and smiling and waving at them. A guy tried to sell me Wayfarers but I just giggled at him. We tried unsuccessfully to find fireworks but that shall be for another day.

 

That is all.

 

Please forgive any formatting problems as this app I'm using is buggy. (Yeh get your shit together Bloggsy!!)