I seem to have talked a lot about food this week, so I promise to try harder at other cultural things up in North. This is just a day of travel so pretty mundane I was thinking.

From Kochi the taxi made a more circular route at a non rush-hour time to the airport which was mostly free of incident. I did hear the driver wince twice, once when a tuk tuk nearly took took him out and the other when I said that the fine for using a mobile phone while driving in the UK was £1000 (72,000 Rupees). He had just quickly lowered his phone when he saw a traffic policeman. The driver said that he earned 72,000 Rupees a year. Dropped at the airport front door, the nice clean airport was quiet and small. There was a tiny mall of 12-14 shops in the open side of the airport which I tried to see if I could get some sweets for the trip. Talk about hen house. Each shop had a woman sales assistant who called out “Sir, inside!” immediately as I approached. It was funny to watch as I tried not to make eye contact. As it was a closed ended mall, I had the same calls on the way back.

The rest of the airport was again a nice small provincial experience. Moving from Security through to the Departure lounge was really easy. Note to Heathrow, their rows of wooden armchairs were really comfortable, something you would have seen in your Gran’s house as a kid. A coffee and a fresh plump spicy samosa and well, that was about it.

The flight up to Delhi calls into Hyderabad on the way through and the first leg flight was empty. Comfortable with lots of room, a bit of Jana Kramer in my ‘phones and yet another meal. I don’t think I’m putting on weight?

Into Hyderabad we had a false landing at about 200 feet and had to re-ascend quickly. The Pilot apologised. A nice landing when it finally happened. Some people got off the plane and we took on other passengers. The Delhi part was full and added the dreaded businessmen too, I’ve been there. You squeeze everything into your oversize bag then play chinese puzzles with the overhead bins to make it fit.

An Indian Man with his family started up a conversation with me and offered some really useful advice on what to see in Delhi and how to go about doing it. He even typed things straight into my iPad. So just in case anyone bumps into him if you are ever in Delhi, his name is Ravi Gupta.

Into Delhi Airport, really impressed, straight onto the Airport Express, very impressed, impressive express station at New Delhi as well. I read in the Hindustani Times, as you do, that they were looking to invest in a new overhead walkway which would link the Delhi Airport Express Metro, The Metro and the Central Rail Station as they were about 200 yards apart from each other. Not a great deal?, keep reading. All I wanted was a Taxi. Oh My God! It was really dark outside the Express Metro Station with limited street lighting, I thought, if I looked like I knew what I was doing then the many Tuk Tuk drivers and Hawkers wouldn’t bother me. Getting past the first 20 I thought would be the hardest. “No, no tuk tuk, a taxi”, one off, next a square cut into the covers (cricket terms for the unaware), but there were just too many. One Tuk Tuk man knew I wasn’t budging and pointed to another dark area but with hundreds of people going to and fro and just said ‘Gate!’ I am sure in daylight this would not have looked like an evacuation scene, but it was amazingly frenetic. I think ‘Gate’ meant the Station entrance.

I looked up and saw a large building, which was across a road with a flow of moving cars and tuk tuk’s leaving the station. One thing I noticed in Kerala was that despite the hooting at pedestrians no driver actually wanted to hit any of them. So I trusted in my hypothesis and just went for it. Not sure why I felt so pleased with myself to just cross a road. I passed by all the porters, opportunistic taxi drivers and got up into the main Railway Station. Oh My God!, again. I thought, I have to try and catch a train from here on Sunday without a confirmed ticket (still Waitlist No.1). There were people everywhere and the lighting was dreadful. Outside there were taxi’s and Tuk Tuk’s bumper to bumper but I didn’t want to do a tour of Delhi and I knew the Hotel was about only a Kilometre away, so needed the official route. Ravi had told me there was an official taxi rate and it was ‘no problem to get one’. There is a saying in strategy, in that if you don’t know where you are going, any road will lead you there. I definitely did not have a clue which way, so wasn’t going to attempt to walk. Well, not at night.

Inside the station people were rushing in every direction. I spotted an Enquiry window, but as I approached, a guy from the side f me said “for Indians only”. I asked, “are you an Official?”, he said yes. I said I wanted to know how to get a taxi. I showed him the address and then the bullshit started. “You need a permit to get to that Hotel. You need to get a Tuk Tuk to a place call ‘Connaught’ (I had heard of that) but then he said you buy a permit and then and only then you are allowed to go to the area. It costs 150 Rupees. I gave him the look and my Indian spin bowler twisted wrist gesture and walked off. I thought the Prepaid Taxi desk must be somewhere around here. All hawker drivers could see I had luggage which meant a possible ride to the airport which is very lucrative, so one after another they pitched to me. Found it! At the end of the station frontage. It seemed that the hawkers for business had better slots than the ‘official’ taxis. Anyway, at the office there were 2 windows next to each other. ‘Auto’ and ‘Taxi ‘. I was approached for a taxi even while standing talking to the office. “Airport?”. I told them it was all local and they became less interested. The drivers pointed me to the Taxi window, in hindsight that may have been wrong. An old guy the spitting image of Mahatma Gandhi (Ben Kingsley) asked me where I was going, but a second before I had spotted a chart on the wall with range and zones and prices. I told him it was a close one and nodded forcefully and he started writing the ticket. “85 Rupees!”. Not sure how he derived that but fixed and low enough was fine. He handed it to a driver that entered the back of the office. He went ballistic. I could see where he was coming from in that he had waited for his turn and this foreigner…a short journey and then I will be back of the queue. He took it while shaking his head. I followed.

The taxi looked like some kind of hippy camper van you would have seen in the 60’s. He threw my case on the back seat and told me to get in by the side of it. My knees were up by my chin, it was a tiny van. In his rage he then reversed out of the parking area and straight square into a tuk tuk. There was no one in the other vehicle. The drivers around all gabbled and someone picked up a piece from his bumper and handed it to him. Eventually we set off but in heavy traffic within seconds. Horns everywhere and unusual loads of all sorts of descriptions being carted by cycle rickshaw and hand cart. Driving something Small is key in this city to avoid those driving something Big. They drive so close that you could shake hands. We eventually arrive at a side road off the main route which is heavily populated with pedestrian. There was a whole host of shops and businesses mostly operating out onto the street. Neon lights pointed to hotels and the cars beeped their ways through the mayhem. I arrive. A small boutique hotel with a neon light up the side. Checked in and shown to my room the porter sang to me in the glass lift going up to my room. He obviously mistook me for someone important.

Following my blog of a couple of days ago, let me tell you that my room on the fourth floor has the letters G, O and D outside my window. It is the only picture I can show you today as I am a bit technically challenged.

To take the photo, I have just turned out all the lights in the bedroom using the fancy electronic switches and I have just had another OMG moment. My bathroom is next to the bedroom and I have had a shower in there this evening. I have just noticed that it has a clear glass floor to ceiling- wall to wall window as its wall which is right opposite my outside window. I thought it was a mirror, but with the light inside…This is getting more like Amsterdam or Bangkok every second.

Final sustenance of the day in the form of a Chicken Murgh Curry (very hot and spicy) and Naan, washed down…

Heavy day tomorrow as I want to see some of Delhi’s main sights.