We are here and we are safe…..more tomorrow we have to get up at 5am!!

Firstly just a quick update from yesterday. Interesting headlines in today’s Times of India.
1) City enveloped in smog ….which blotted out the sun through the day. It was described by one expert as a ‘toxic cocktail of poisonous gases’. Not just me then!
2) ‘1322 traffic rules breaches in 25 secs on the ring road.’ The question here of course is why on earth is this news?

So another day in smelly Delhi. Actually I have to say I am loving it! So today we had our driver and set off without a guide. The driver made some recommendations on top of what we asked to do and he started by taking us to the Lakshmi Narayan Mandir (temple). This was a lovely place, very colourful with the images of Hindu god such as Vishnu, Lakshmi, Ganesh (elephant) and Hanuman (monkey). As always lots of people and really lovely and respectful. It was a good stop.
Then we moved onto Lutyens Delhi. This was very surprising as we hadn’t seen any of this yesterday and so to suddenly find ourselves in these wide avenues, with beautiful fountains and gardens and enormous official buildings was v strange. Nobody is allowed to park so it was also devoid of all the people elsewhere. India Gate is in this same area and is very impressive with an eternal flame for soldiers killed in the WW1 et al.
It may not seem it the way I am writing this but today’s tour was much more leisurely. So next stop Humayuns Tomb. We were too late to go here yesterday and it really was worth coming back. It is similar in style to the Taj Mahal but built in red sandstone and no minarets. The gardens and water features are particularly beautiful and presumably far less crowded than the Taj will be. It was quite exciting at one point when a load of soldiers and security guards flooded in to the building to check the place out it appeared that a famous film star was having a tour! Meanwhile I missed all this as I was making friends again with all the school children.
Last stop was the Lodi Gardens featuring a rather disappointing pond.
On to lunch which was a place Jane had found on Trip Advisor at Connaught Place. It is called Sarvana Bharvan and had huge queues outside waiting to taste it’s southern Indian cuisine. The queue moved fast and in we went. We ordered the recommended Thali and it was excellent food.
Connaught Place itself is a horrible place and I think we experienced our first scammers here as everyone seemed to want us to follow them away from the obvious shops to the big emporium. Hmm I didn’t like it and persuaded the others to get in a pair of tuk tuks and come back to the sanctuary of our hotel. Phew.
Tomorrow we fly to Varanasi ..so we’ll have to see what the Internet scenario is there.

How exciting to see the count down turn to hours instead of days! We have arrived down here a the Sheraton Skyline at Heathrow. Horrible journey down in lashing rain through the Cotswolds and had a nightmare trucker on my tail. What was the name of that movie?
Joyce, one of our fellow travellers had some bad luck yesterday as she managed to lock herself out of the house and had to get the locksmith out. £95 later she was back in but thinks she needs to take up begging in Delhi. She should try living in London where Pete does- I’m sure that little incident set us back more like £250. Also Enid had to make an emergency dash to Debenhams to get a new suitcase after the zip broke on her old one. She always does try to pack too much.
Still on a brighter note Jane and I logged onto British Airways today only to find out that our seats had been upgraded. Happy days.
Some you win…some you lose.
We’ll be meeting up with Joyce and Enid over breakfast in Delhi as their flights go via Zurich. Obviously.

Good news sports fans…finally the Indian Judiciary have lifted the ban on tourists visiting the national parks for the purpose of viewing tigers. We had already decided not to change our itinerary so this is a little added bonus. The rules remain a little confusing in that viewing is now allowed in the outer 20% of the core areas.

Tiger india (Photo credit: Wikipedia

Related articles

• Ban on tiger tourism in India lifted (telegraph.co.uk)

Welcome to my new blog. There is no great plan for this blog other than for it to replace the journals that I usually write to capture the magic moments on our trips.
It seemed a good place to start with our recent visit to Buckingham Palace. This was a birthday treat and it was very enjoyable. The changing of the guard is a surprisingly popular event with crowds of tourists- I mean CROWDS- watching the apparently randomn comings and goings. The audio tour is very good and the music when you enter very atmospheric – we felt right at home.
Anyway the first real stop for this blog will be India in November and after quite a bit of stress we now have our visas and just await news on the tiger ban. Typically the decision keeps getting put back and the next update is due on 3rd October….