it's a long 'un

Howdy folks.

Sorry I’ve not posted over this last week. I’ve been on the night shift so not up to much really. Just sleeping in and eating McDonalds, KFC and Pizza boring!

But we had the bestest, if most tiring weekend, ever this weekend.

Gav arrange a trip for us to go to Delhi and to visit the Taj Mahal. Though I am totally exhausted and got sun burnt on my feet and neck I had a fantastic time.

This is real long so I'll do 2, 1 for each day.

SATURDAY


On Saturday morning at 4:45am the cars came to collects us and take us to the airport, there were 15 of us in total. We flew from Pune to Delhi.

On arrival 2 things hit me, firstly the temperature, man it was hot, secondly, Delhi is like a real town. I’ve been in Pune for 3 weeks now and have come to assume that all towns in India are like it, bumpy roads and all that, but Delhi is something else, they have smooth tarmac (what luxury!) and tall buildings and everything.

We transferred to our Hotel and checked in, after a few minutes to freshen up we met in the lobby. To start with we did some sight seeing, we saw the Presidential palace, Parliament and India Gate.


This is the presidential Palace, rather nice, it has 340 rooms Mr Singh, our annoying driver, said.

After doing a bit some folks wanted to go shopping and some wanted to do more sightseeing. I chose to sight see a bit. We went to this cool place Qutub Minar. It is a mosque site, well it was it’s a ruin I suppose really now, and it has a 5 storey tower. The tower was awesome, the carvings on it and the stonework were amazing.

By this time the temperature was 36 degrees and I was starting to frazzle, I was hot and sweaty and red all over. It was time to dine, we went to a nice restautant called Essex. I had a mutton biryani which was nice, though I don't know why they leave the bones in the meat....I tried some of Dees Daal, it was nice, it would have gone great over some chips.

After dinner Julie, Paul and Karin decided that they would go back and chill at the hotel, while Dee and me decided to go and do a bit of shopping.

The plan was to meet up with Al and co but we got way-laid. I asked our Driver if he knew of a silver shop or market. He took us to this fabulous store and we spent probably the best part of 90 minutes marvelling over the jewellery and choosing our purchases. I bought 2 silver rings which I’m currently sporting, I got a pink Jade bracelet, it’s got beads on a string that you tighten by pulling on the 2 end bits, I really love it and am going to wear it every hour of every day that I’m not in bed or the shower.
I also got a necklace and pendant, the necklace was a silver snake chain and the pendant is about 1.5 inches long with several Garnet stones making up a flower design. The lot cost me £46 which I thought was very reasonable.

At night we went to a restaurant called Gaylord’s……Vince wanted his photo taking outside it.
Apparently it’s a national chain, what a peculiar name though and to be honest it was the first bad meal I’d had since I’ve been here.

I got a chicken and asparagus bake with a cheese crust, served with veggies. Firstly there were no veggies and secondly there was no cheese crust, there was lots of chicken in a cheesy sauce though it was agreeable it was not delicious like I’m used to.

Our Al got lamb chops and potato wedges, they looked delicious and he said as much. It is Liz’s birthday on Wednesday and Gav arranged for the restaurant to bring a cake for her. I’ve tried a few cakes while I’ve been here and they haven’t been that nice, compared to ones at home, but this cake was delicious.

By this time it was after midnight and we were leaving for the Taj at 2:30am so we left and went to bed.

livestock count for the day - 7 :Dags, Cows, Snake (with it’s charmer), Lizard (it was on the wall in the cash point room), a Chipmunk, a giant ant (not kidding it was over an inch long) and monkeys.