We arrived back in Delhi on the train - all looking pretty dishevelled and feeling pretty tired. The familiar stink of rubbish, tug of beggars and tuk-tuk driver hassle was all still present and correct. Nothing had changed since we left three weeks previously, although there was noticably less of a military presence than there had been following the Hyderabad bombings on the day after we arrived.

We had booked into the same hotel (and room) as we had begun our stay in - the Pooja Palace, Pooja meaning prayer. Although windowless, we had good air conditioning, a fridge and a tv - relative luxury. We found out on our penultimate day that there was also hot water available - all we had to do was to ask for it to be turned on, and then off again... this was someone's job! It was too hot to be a problem though. We had 5 days to potter about until our flight to Bangkok, and the plan was to relax and recover so that we would be ready for more adventure in Thailand.

We had late mornings and leisurely breakfasts, spending a couple of days mastering the fantastic metro system. We found it hard to believe we were in the same country; it's miles better than the London Underground and New York subway, although mostly by virtue of being spanking new, and at only about 8p a ride it was a bargain too. This was part of a bigger project in the city to prepare for the arrival of the Commonwealth Games in 2010... much work still needed, and sadly like sticking a plaster on a broken leg, although there's still time.

We had another go at visiting the spice market, which was closed when we were last there, and the same chaps who we'd encountered having a scratch and generally not doing a lot when we last walked around were now industriously carrying heavy sacks of stinky spices to and fro. Bit of a let down as not as colourful as we were hoping, but still an atmospheric (and smelly) outing.

Katie, Claire, Lucy and Dave (three sisters from Leeds and Katie's boyfriend Dave), from our tour were around in Delhi for three or so days before returning to the UK, so as well as a few games of cards, we all went to the cinema together for another foray into Bollywood. This film was called Heyy Babyy, and was the Bollywood version of three men and a baby; complete with dance routines, shocking near-death from pneumonia baby scenes, tears, a token appearance from the ever present Shah Rukh Khan (he was the coach in Chak De), and many, many lengthy speeches. Getting the hang of this a bit, we enjoyed the whole film in Hindi, although were agreed that it could have been a little shorter and not lost anything.

I had managed to get some kind of insect trapped between my calf and leg whilst travelling on the train, and it had done the only natural thing and bitten me until I moved. Unfortunately after a couple of days of wandering around in the heat, these bites now resembled (sorry for the detail - skip ahead to next paragraph if sensitive), pieces of salami stuck on my leg, and were pretty painful. That, and a small tumble down the stairs in the hotel (that's what happens when you wear sunglasses indoors!), which gave me a technicoloured knee for a few days, made me doubt slightly the promises of good luck following the bird poo incident. All right as rain after a quick visit to the chemists and a couple of days of magical creams though.

We got through plenty of books, and felt revived and ready for the rest of the journey ahead. Time to catch a plane to Bangkok...