In my last update I think I told you that our flight had been delayed from

330 to 530 to 610. Well, the trend continued... To 630 to 700 to 710 to 730... But we finally got in the air!

The airport in Udaipur however, was a story in itself. When we went through security, we were told that we didn't need to take belts, watches or shoes off. Everyone then proceeded to walk through the metal detector which went off for absolutely every person. Everyone was then searched individually by one security guard, while at least 6 others just stood there. Genius.

The airport was actually very modern and well kept and had a number of proper gates. However when the planes came in, they chose to stop them on random spots on the tarmac instead of bringing them to the gates. Our plane parked about 50 metres from the gate, which I didn't think was so bad...

Until they decided that it was required for everyone to be bussed to the plane... 50 metres away! What's worse is that there was only 1 bus and there was also a flight leaving to Mumbai that was parked miles away down the runway. So when late passengers for that plane came, they stopped our bus service and had the bus take the 3 people out to that plane, while we stood outside on the tarmac looking at our plane 50 metres away!

We sadly had to say goodbye to the Tourist, and our driver Sonu and his sidekick Raju at the Udaipur Airport. Words cannot properly describe how unbelievable a driver he was. To avoid any accidents or issues throughout our journey was truly an incredible feat. Antony aptly described it as a "No Hitter" (For you Australians, that's when a pitcher in baseball pitches a complete game with no hits allowed - quite a difficult feat). Note that it took Antony 12 days and a lot of attempts to make his first funny!

Today we had a tour of Old Delhi. We were meant to start at 12 noon, and for the first time in 2 weeks we were perfectly on time! Unfortunately there was a miscommunication and the guide didn't arrive until 1.

Today's tour was of Old Delhi. We began with a walk through the streets, which were really much more like laneways, which got smaller and smaller as we kept walking. The amount of stores and people that were able to fit in there was truly amazing. An interesting thing that the tour guide said was that the store owners were millionaires (rupees). This was surprising to me because the stores are just small holes in the wall. Apparently 95 percent of their business is actually wholesale.

There are a LOT of people in Delhi. It is officially listed at 14M but it is estimated that its closer to 28M. But everywhere you go it seems like everyone is doing something and has a purpose, even if that purpose isn't defined as a job.

We then visited the Jamma Masjid mosque. It is India's largest mosque and was built in 1644. I found this interesting because everything we've seen thus far has been primarily been hindu. This was muslim and India has about 250M muslims, the second largest total in the world.

We finished the day with the Red Fort and a visit to Mahatma Gandhi's memorial.

Great day today. I learned a lot.

Jeremy

PS. One of the funny things our guide said today was: "Law is a mere suggestion in India"

PPS. We saw a rickshaw bike rider pull into a main intersection when he wasn't supposed to. So a police officer grabbed him and slapped him across the face... Twice!