Hi all!!! I'm still alive and well but most importantly, the time you have all been waiting for has arrived in the form of this blog post!!...Ok, so most of you probably forgot you had given me your e-mail addresses but to late now…ha ha!!

With work keeping me busy during the week, I lost count of the days only to find that what I thought was a Thursday was a Friday and that I had the weekend off!!! Despite being in this massive city (Delhi has a population of between 14 and 14.5 million), I had not had a chance to see the tourist spots so, after meticulous planning on the back of some scrap paper, on Sunday, I headed into the city!!

First stop was India Gate. This monumental arch stands 45m high, and serves as a potent reminder of the human cost of war with, inscriptions of the known Indian soldiers killed in conflicts up until 1971 covering the arch. From here, I went down the Rajpath (basically a large road) towards the parliamentary buildings which were built in the colonial era by the good old English! Having had a look around here I went onto visit another colonial masterpiece in the form of Connaught place.

I am still unsure why Connaught place was built..... it is quite impressive none the less! Consisting of an inner, middle and outer circle, Connaught place is probably best described as three giant roundabouts circling each other with bands of shops separating them. Anyway, being a Sunday, everything was closed which was quite good as the traffic was more like London's traffic than the mayhem which occurs in Delhi, and I was able to quickly move on to see the Red fort.

The Red Fort is one place that I would love to bore you all with a historical lecture on...however, for the few who do want the lecture, you'll have to wait till I get back as in order to prevent writing a book, I will try to keep this as short as possible! The fort itself is HUGE. None the less, once inside its Red walls, and past the heavily armed police, well preserved gardens and ancient buildings seem to be every ware. The fairly disappointing War museum (which consists of a few arrows and some guns…which is probably implicit in the name!) is also in the fort but was hardly the highlight of the day!

Leaving the fort, I found my rickshaw driver who, once I was perched on the seat proceeded to peddle into the on-coming traffic!! (seriously, I wander if there is a highway code over here) anyway, once away from the angry busses and beeping cars, we began weaving through the crowds in Old Delhi. Having navigated what seemed to me to be most of the back alleys in the city, eventually, having visited the spice market and a monkey temple (sadly with no monkeys!) I went to the Jama Masjid mosque (built by the same leader who made the Taj Mahal).

This mosque is amazing...although foreigners definitely get ripped off if they want to bring a camera in…oh well, it's worth it!! Anyway, after a wander round the mosque and up one of its 40m tower, I headed over to the Rajghat to visit Gandhi's tomb and from there, onto the final place that Ghandi stayed and was eventually assassinated at.

Wow, that was nothing short of an essay!! Sorry for boring you all with it...oh well, if you are not asleep or brain dead after reading this, I have put a few pictures up as well…enjoy!!

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