Feb 23, Monday, Delhi, India, Suryaa Hotel, New Friends Colony

Delhi is colorful, a cacauphony of sounds, and full of unrecognizable smells.  We are in for a blast of an experience.

As you can see, it is also very smoggy, the streets are impossibly crowded with bullocks, busses, cars, trucks, tuk tuks, bicycle rickshaws, pedestrians, people in every shop and corner on the streets, and most of all, motorcycles.

From hotel room

Beautiful lobby of hotel in Delhi, Suryaa

We arrived in Delhi around 3:00pm and met Gene and Abe who are on our tour.  We were met after customs by an OAT representative who was also meeting others for a group starting a day earlier than ours.  We booked the Suryaa Hotel, thinking that was going to be our hotel in Dellhi, but the other group went there.  We are at the Park.  So we stay one night at the Suryaa, an hour cab ride through S. Delhi.  The air is foggy/smoggy so the visibility isn't that good.  The Suryaa hotel is very nice.  We had a very nice room and ate at the restaurant at the top, which served Asian food.  They had a special menu for Chinese New Year, the year of the ox.  

I must mention that we are both reading a book called "Enjoying India, the Essential Handbook".  One of the things mentioned was the love of Indian people for Cricket.  In the airport in Joburg the restaurant TV had the highlights of the recent S. Africa vs. India cricket game.  And India won!  We got some basic information about how the game is played from some British photographers sitting nearby. They had been in Africa filming the carmen breasted roller for a 10 min. bit on BBC TV.  Now we have a topic of discussion with Indians.   The World Cup of Cricket is playing now in Australia, until about March 23, and it looks like India may have a chance, although they say Australia is the best team.

Streets of Delhi.