After a breakfast of hard boiled eggs and toast, our car driver, hired for the day (who is also going to be our driver up until Khajaruho) drove us past the Indian Government and Prime Ministers buildings, and it was good timing too as we had to stop to let the prime ministers car pass, surrounded by 4 black cars (although I was looking in the completely wrong direction and so missed it all!). We then went to visit INdia Gate, Indias answer to L'arc de Triomphe. there were a few people selling various souveniers, including some of the most ugliest dolls I've ever laid eyes on in my life!

We then went to Emperor amayun's tomb which was absolutely stunning- I hope the Taj Mahal is as good! The other tombs surrounding his were very bland in comparison, and me and Alice didn't find the pomegranate and mago trees that apparently were in the gardens somewhere.

Th lotus temple was our next stop- it was good to look at from the outside, especially as you got nearer to the blue pools of water outside (even if they looked like the colour was abit artificial), but it didn't look particularly interesting inside, and I'm not sure who the temple was built to worship. We got the usual of people asking for pictures of us, and got chatting to a group of them who taught us a few phrases of Hindi (although we've forgotten how you say it and, from memory, it looks different to the version I just looked up in the guidebook). It was a bit awkward and we didn't know what to say when one of them said #Oh, you're complexion... and she... she is just so dark#, talking about the woman who was having her photo with us.

Walking back up to the car park, we got talking to an Indian from Birmingham (who seemed to be more genuinely not a local than Jerry from US yesterday, he seemed to have a pretty good accent if not), who had come to visit because his Grandfather had built a house and had given a room to each of his grandsons. It wa interesting as I'd wondered whether or not people of Indian descent who live in England still suffer from culture shock and get ill (he was complaining he had Delhi belly so that answers that one). He also assured us that Indian Mcdonalds was OK to eat, so guess where we went for lunch?

However it wasn't so easy to find the car driver as it had been the tuk-tuk driver, who dutifully waited outside for us in each place we went yesterday, so we walked around in the car Park, but out of the many white cars it was hard to spot ours, and he wasn't standing at the place he had dropped us off, so our Brum friend and his cousins phoned the hotel for us. the driver appeared and hurriedly waved us inside, I think he was worried we were talking to the indians. I don't think our request of going to Mcdonalds after possibly getting him into trouble with the hotel helped put him in a good mood, especially as he didn't know where the one Alice had seen was. We managed to find it though, and he dropped us off telling us he'd pick us up in 30 minutes- I was scared of being any later than that! We had to go through a security scanner on the way in and there were palm trees inside! I chose a spicy Mcpaneer Burger, which was nice although the sauce kind of overpowered the paneer. the chips tasted different to English ones which I put down to them not being fried in beef fat. Alice had a veggie burger. It was halfway through our meal, after I had said the MCflurrys would probably be a bad idea, that Alice realised that there was lettuce in the burgers. We hope they were washed in chemicals or something!

Compared to Himayun's tomb, It hought Qutab Minar was a bit rubbish, although it had a few things to look at. Alice liked the hill, so there's an insight into how good it was.

We made the driver take us to the Lodi GArden, but we were bullied into leaving after only 30 minutes, so we had just enough time to walk round the lake, look at someone's tomb and sit and watch a fountain before going back to the driver.

We wanted to look at the hotel we are staying in for Mumbai to see whether we might want to stay in there on Christmas day or go out and be touristy so we could decide when we would like to get there for. Our plan was to get to New Delhi train station to book the overnight train from kerala to Mumbai, but the guidebook said you needed the train name and number to do this. To sign up to the Indian Railway booking website you need an indian phone number, but there is a website called cleartrip.com where they email you the password the orignal website would send to your (Indian) mobile. Whilst waiting for the email, I went downstairs where one of the Hotel Travel Agents was telling Alice that places would all be booked up in Kerala- I managed to find some so I think he was just trying to rip us off againn which we can't afford to do. (i'm glad we booked the first bit as we were completely new to it all, but we can't afford to do it everywhetre, and we won't learn how to do it ourselves, plus the schedule is so hectic we feel too tired to do anything after, and we need time to organise!)

Over dinner of pizza (I was so fed up of INdia, what with trying to sort out itionary, places to stay and transport, plus the guys from the travel agency making 'helpful' comments, this was my way of rebelling) we decided on staying in Kopchi for 2 nights, 1 night on a houseboat on the backwaters and 3 nights on Varkala beach. Then we wanted an overnight train to Goa, then nother to Mumbai. However there were 59 people onh the waiting list for the first one and a similar amount for the second. We were too tired after our long day to figure out what to do, but decided we'll try at the train station tomorrow morning (although a bit doubtful that it will be open as we are supposed to be leaving at 6am) and we only looked at 3AC trains so may be able to get some better class. Failing that we'll try along the way to Mankawa at a rail station once it's open, or if no trainsd are available we should be able to get a flight although I'm not sure if there's internet at our next hotel.

Hence the stress causing me to write this at 3am!