Don't Give Up

I think me, ant, and alex all had about 4 hours sleep on the Friday night before we left, thanks to drinks in town. Spent the entire of Saturday travelling and we didn't really manage to sleep on the plane. Arrived in India 10am Sunday morning very tired and disorientated.

We found our taxi pickup and got into a pretty run down looking van, all fine so far. However, the ride over to the hostel was pretty terrifying. The driving style over there is pretty much a free-for-all. Whoever beeps the loudest has right of way it seems. Everywhere you look there is something to see, although most of it is people pushing carts or beggers in pretty extreme poverty. We all just look at each other, pretty overwhelmed.

The taxi driver stops in what can only really be described as a slum. He seems to just pick the most piss-soaked, dodgy looking alley he can see and leads us down it. I think it was about this point I thought we might have got in the wrong taxi. But he takes us to our hostel, which we gladly pile in, and as quickly as we can find our room and lock the door. The room is fine, it has 1 giant bed for the 3 of us and is clean.

We venture out onto the streets, where you are accosted by people trying to "talk english" to you, aka take you somewhere to sell you something. And we quickly head back to the safety of our hostel. We are about ready to give up on Delhi, and think about finding a train outta here.

After a sleep we get up feeling a lot better about 6pm Saturday. It seems pretty apt when we ask for the wireless password to find a train that the guy behind the desk tells us it is "Don't give up". We have a quick search, and also look for more things to do in Delhi. Turns out there is probably quite a lot, we just need to explore a bit more, and learn to ignore the touts.

We had a pretty good Saturday night, met some people in the hostel, went for a few beers in a few bars, and kinda got used to our surroundings. We are going to try and find the red fort today, maybe see a few mosques. It isn't as bad as it first seems, and hopefully we can get into the swing of things today.

Anyway, its Sunday morning and I'm about to go try the free breakfast included with the room. Hope its good, considering the room only cost 2 pound 50 a night.