Delhi 14th April 2006

I got talking to the guy on reception this morning and he reminded me that his brother was getting married (he’d told me the last time I’d stayed there) and he invited me to the wedding. It is going to be up in the mountains, but not in the direction that I plan to go, I told him that I’d have a word with my friends and I’ll see what they want to do.

I had to drop my motorbike back to the workshop as it was leaking oil pretty badly, so I met up with my four friends at around mid-day and decided to take them to see a bit of New Delhi. I was pretty hot and I decided to take the Metro, which has air-conditioning, and we went to Central Secretariat, which is the stop closest to India Gate. I hadn’t been there for a while and it was nice to see some grass and water again. Surprisingly enough we didn’t really get hassled when we were down there, the only ones who tried were Tuk-Tuk drivers.

We were sitting under the shade of a tree chatting and chilling when I noticed two Tuk-Tuk riders pull up and I pointed this out to my friends and had a bit of a laugh about it. After about five minutes one of them came over and asked us if we need a Tuk-Tuk, we told him that we didn’t. Attack number two came another five minutes later the over and asked us where we wanted to go, I told him that we didn’t want to go anywhere. He then asked us if we wanted to go to any shops and kindly offered to take us there. I told him that we didn’t and if we did we would take the Metro as it only cost 8 Rupee (£0.09pence), I think he got the hump and wandered off to sit in his Tuk-Tuk. He spent the next couple of minutes sitting there looking forlornly at us, until we got up and walked back to the Metro station.

We then went to Connaught Place and went to a café for something to eat and drink and make a couple of loose plans for the next two weeks. Top of the agenda was getting out of Delhi “as soon as” and hitting the hills. Carol and I left them in the café and went to pick up my motorbike as it was getting towards 18:00 at this stage. I’m glad to say that the bike was ready and he told me that the leak was repaired. He showed me the part that caused the leak (the tappet cover) and he told me that it had been over tightened and the cover had buckled, I played innocent… Come to think of it I do remember thinking that that particular nut seemed a bit loose, how was I to now that I would buckle the metal? I’ve got to check the nuts and bolts every morning before I take the bike for a spin as the vibrations cause the nuts to work loose – the joys of riding a classic machine.

We met the others back at their hotel and decided to go to a restaurant that Rajen’s dad recommended, we had a look where it was on the map only to find out that it was down my Jama Masjid, the big mosque where we were last night. As they were dropping their keys off to the front desk I had a quick look at the TV in reception and there was a news flash. Two bombs had gone off at the mosque and thirteen people were injured, no reports of any deaths. We decided that it probably wasn’t the best area to visit at that particular time and headed off to one of the roof top restaurants that got a good review in Lonely Planet. Rajen and I got there first as Carol, Gulshan and Mairead did a bit of shopping. Funnily enough, the roof top restaurant is located on the roof, but this roof was about five floors up and Raj and I were both “cream crackered” by the time we got up there. We ordered a couple of Lassis (yogurt drinks) and joked about how the girls were probably camped out half way up the stairs in bits. The girls turned up a couple of minutes later, with not a hair out of place, and we asked them how they got on with the stairs. They told us they got the lift up. Doh! The food was ok; I had a big steak (probably water buffalo), which was a bit chewy and overcooked (they don’t do medium rare in these here parts). Gulshan had a mushroom something or other and the other three got some lamb and chicken kebabs from the BBQ. We had a quick drink after dinner and had an early night as we were meeting at 07:00 to make our way to Chandigar.