I was more careful about the hostel that I choose in Delhi, thinking about it later it was both a good and bad decision. I was still not interested in spending too much money so I found a place called hotel Vivek in Paharganj it cost 400 Rupee per night and right in the middle of the tourist district plus it had a great restaurant on the roof.

I started off in Delhi working out what I would see with the tour group on Sunday and what I could see by myself. After some fluffing about I eventually hired a car for the day and was able to see (1) India Gate, (2) Lotus Temple, (3) Humayun’s Tomb and (4) Lodi Garden I also saw the (5) Red Fort on my own.
(5) (3) (2) (4) (1)
By now it was Sunday and I had checked into the Hotel Grand President to meet the people would would become my travel companions for the next 22 days. I assumed that we were going to get to know each other fairly well because we had a 22 hour overnight train journey to look forward to.

On Monday of the train journey we went to see the Jama Masjid in Old Delhi, walk through the markets and enter the Gurudwara Sis Ganj (Sikh Temple) to learn a bit about them.

Despite the length of the train journey I quite enjoyed it, I think it was because I also got to know everyone a little more, I’m a sucker for travel stories and everyone at at least a few because they seemed to have travelled much more than I have. Plus a train journey like that offers so many good photo opportunities.

All the warning I got about how different India is still wouldn’t have prepared me for what I faced while I was there. I don’t know if it was the culture shock or just the sheer number of people, mess and traffic.

Admittly I didn’t enjoy Mumbai for the first few days, I would put it down to a combination of the city its self and being on my own for the first time, after I changed hostels to a better part of town I found that my time go better.

The first place that I stayed was near the Victoria Terminus train station, I booked it because the website looked great with nice clean rooms and a friendly atmosphere. It was anything but when I got there, a small dirty room on the noisy side of the hostel I could hear nothing but the consistant traffic.
The next hostel was better, the room was the same size, only slightly cleaner but the area was much better I was able to access tourist sites and shops that I needed without a 40 min walk.

The moment that Mumbai started to get better is when I went out the Elephant Island and the next day when I stumbled on to a Lord Krishna festival. As the story goes Krishna’s mother had put a jar (milk or cookies I can’t remember) high up so that he couldn’t reach it, so he got his friends around a built a human prymad to reach the jar.
So all these boys and men where creating human prymids to reach these jars of stuff that were secured high above their heads. I took heaps of photos and really enjoyed myself, I haven’t uploaded them as well, as I have fogotten to do so. But will try to do some later on.