We arrived early on Saturday morning, and spent a couple of hours in a selection of variously chaotic queues, for immigration, customs and the bank. One official insisted we declare our camera and dictaphone, so we queued. The actual official said there was no need but we had to register our money and travellers cheques. We filled in the forms … “Is that all you’ve got?” “Yes.” “Go through, no need to register.” And so, to another queue … in which we waited so long, we missed the Ex-Servicemen’s Taxibus - a real bargain at 15 Rs! The Airport Bus cost £50 and was our first taste of sleaze - oily velvet ceiling liner (contoured and cut!) and spray-on stencils, warning us to tell the driver if we find a bomb. Cheering! The TI was helpful, and disbelieving that we only have 3 weeks and aren’t on a tour. Our first choice hotel from the Guide was, amazingly, available, and a delightfully seedy joint it is too. The sheets are clean-ish but the bedcover by no stretch of a blind man on a strolling buffalo’s imagination could be said to be so, imprinted with trainer prints and others less recognisable and desirable. The loo takes 30 minutes to fill and cannot be coaxed to change function by flushing during that painstaking procedure. Truly Indian! The room overlooks a yard about which the less said the better. There is a balcony on the front of the hotel where the hoards of bell-wallahs congregate until a guest wants to sit, when they evaporate, in suits and flip flops.

Within minutes, nay seconds of venturing into the arcades of Connaught Place, I was seduced by the goodies on sale. But not before 3 separate hawkers had nobbled us for postcards, money-changing-good-price, and "something to smoke”. Hmm.

Delhi is a hectic place that works by strange rules. In the shadow of Connaught Place, a vast circular, concentric set of colonnades with once-imposing frontages now plastered with fly posters and neon, live a whole world and class of people whose possessions are the few rags they stand -or more usually - huddle in. To drive, you reputedly need three things: Good Brakes, Good Horn and Good Luck. Drivers operate by weaving, flapping a hand idly to indicate a turn, and trusting fatefully in the Karma of the opposition, believing I suppose, that someone else’s number is likely to come up first. Surprisingly, there’s little damage, which is just as well, given the ramshackle and insecure nature of the auto rickshaws (Vespa-based) and the trishaws, none of which is disguised by the colourful rangolis or even chillis tied to them for luck. I saw one trishaw cyclist with an 8 x 6 foot long metal gas cylinders aboard. Amazing.

The rhyme we devised was an attempt to convey some of the conundrum that is Delhi. At first, cynically I began
We arrived all unplanned, here in Delhi
Where the streets are a little bit smelly
The food’s good and spicy
The beds rather licy
And I’m watching out for a bad belly

But it seemed in bad taste, and largely an overstatement, so we came up with:
All they say about Delhi’s not true
Old is chaos: the Brits built the New
Folk are friendly and busy
Food’s spicy, beer’s fizzy
And the temperature’s constantly “Phew”!

We have mooched mercilessly in bazaars, both steamy and air-con. We have become inured to the hawkers and (most of) the beggars, many of whom are very plausible. And we have planned our itinerary, which took nearly a day. We have visited The Red Fort, Jantar Mantar, Hamayun’s Tomb, Lakshri Narayan’s Temple, India Gate, Parliament House, Qtab Minar and Indira Gandhi’s museum. We also visited the largest mosque, Jami Majjid. Now I know why people say Delhi is for them like hell. More of this anon.