So...first blog entry and we're reminiscing on Delhi...

The airport wasn't as scary as everyone made it out to be, but we're mega pleased that we had a driver to meet us and take us to a pre-booked hotel. He's going to be our driver for just over 2 weeks and he's a nice guy despite his love of honking the horn a bit too much!!

Our hotel was ok...but Delhi's very dirty and busy and to quote Katie "a big poohole"...nice. We had a day sightseeing and all was going fine until we got a little confused by an over confident cycle-rickshaw driver who took us all over Old Delhi, which actually wasn't in our schedule. Turns out he wasn't our actual driver that we were meant to be sticking with for the afternoon - oops! All worked out in the end even though he wasn't terribly happy when we refused to pay the 500 rupees he was asking for, we settled for 200 and walked away quickly as a crowd seemed to be gathering!

The best sights in Delhi were all the well maintained Government buildings, memorials and monuments like the Red Fort, India Gate and Ghandi's Cemetery. The best part of being here has been how excited children particularly are when they see us. It's like we're fab celebs and all they want to do is have us say hello, wave and in some cases shake hands!! In fact, yesterday we had our picture taken whilst sat in the back of our car, which is superb - it's an old Ambassador classic Indian car...like off the telly!!

As soon as we left Delhi (now dubbed 'smelli Delhi') the place brightened up and the world just seemed cleaner. We had an overnight stop in Jhunjhunu - quite dull, but just a midway point really as next stop is Bikaner (MILES from Delhi...no sorry, kilometres!)

We've seen loads of temples, mosques, churches etc. The Hindi ones are the best, most decorated and are really beautiful. It's weird, they don't have one god, or even just a few, apparently they have over 33,000!! They must be taken care of! We went to a Sati temple yesterday, they're crackers!! Although the tradition is long since abolished, it used to be the case that when a young husband died, his wife would commit sati - that is to burn alongside him at his cremation. I'm all for it! Katie...not so much!

Although India's a big shock to an asia virgin like me, it's still nice, most people are very friendly - even if they do expect a 'gift' for their efforts. The sun's excellent, the food is indescribably good (on the whole) and we're looking forward to more fun ahead! - Nick

Hola! Cooper at the helm now!! Well i think the boy has pretty much covered our events up til now, a few minor hiccups but nothing to fuss over. I was not a big fan of Delhi (eurgh yuk!!) but the countryside we have been pottering through in the car is great and I am muchos happy in our current hotel in Bikaner (to be blogged about when we have actually done something other than arrive!!) I did enjoy the stuff we saw in Delhi though...it's just a bit too rough around the edges for someone as refined as my good self!!

Picking up on Nick's point of the food being good - it's yum!! So far we have been sampling all sorts of niceness, and working out the menus quite well with our limited knowledge of Indian terms (mainly learned in the Viceroy at home!!) and it is not weird or wacky or any of the other things people said we were to expect! I'm sure there will be a few surprises along the road, but so far a biryani looks like a biryani and a mackani looks like a mackani!!

Rightio...think that's enough blathering for now. Hope all is well at home and Lucy hasn't emptied my entire wardrobe by now. Phone doesn't seem to want to work outside of Delhi although I can receive texts just not reply!! So I will take this opportunity to say Happy Birthday to Katy for Saturday and Martin for Sunday!!

Katie...xxx

Just a quick p.s. from Nick...they have wild monkeys, stray dogs, cows, sheep, goats and CAMELS!!!! Amazing!