Good on Delhi Jeez I am so bad it's August and I haven't finished my India notes - in between countries I need a week to get upto date on my notes Sun - shopping and got a bug Back in Delhi Sun- shopping - I had 2 shopping missions to get new shoes and glasses. Indian shoes are crap so I went out East to some shopping malls to Go to Big Bazaar. - Very hot day and I made the mistake of sheltering in the shade whilst the guy made my egg sandwich. If I'd watched to get him to cook it properly I wouldn't have lost 1 month to some typhoid like sickness. - Later I took the bus further east to the town of Ghaziabad, nothing to see even the old town was untidy and disorganised. - One interesting thing was I took a commuter train the 28Km back. It cost me 6c US surely printing the ticket costs more ! Mon - Explorered North Delhi - Whilst I was on the metro I'd seen some old Victorian buildings so today I went back to explore. Nearby the metro station I found the victorian building which looked like it should be in London. It stands out in Delhi cos it looks like it has design and character whereas most buildings in India look untidy and added onto in a haphazard way. Now it's hidden behind workshops. It's called Roshanara Mansion, Roshanara Road. It was interesting to see signs saying "this building is for residenial use only", when clearly many of the apartments were being used as workshops and business. - Then I walked up the road to Ashokan Pillar or Mutiny Memorial on Northern Ridge a conical monument which commemorates British deaths due to Siege of Delhi against the the British East India Company, which lasted 3 months in 1857, when Delhi was only a minor outpost. In 1972 the government changed the monument to commemorate the attackers on the grounds that they were among the first freedom fighters. wikip - I walked though lots more typical run down areas until I came to another tower, which seemed a little like a victorian prison. It was actually a victorian flour mill, which was still working so I couldn't get close. I walked all the way back. The normal hassle of walking in India, but a surprise to see monkeys also walls along on the first floor balconies and electric cables. Mon- bought these glasses that broke in a day - Crap Glasses froom Khanna Opticals I stopped to pick up the glasses I'd ordered 24 hours earlier. - It was clear they hadn't even started, I had to wait an hour - In Korea I always buy the same rimless style for $30. Here in India rimless are not popular so it was maybe a mistake to buy them as the worker wasn't accustomed to making this type. The first time they came up far too tight like child glasses. Then he heated the middle section leaving a crack in it. - Tuesday morning in the daylight the crack looked more clear so I decided that someday the glasses would break along that crack so after walking I should go back to the shop. But actually 3 hours later as I walked the glasses just suddenly split along that crack and fell off my face. - Back at the shop he replaced the centre section. - However it was only 3 weeks later that they broke in 2 places : once at the arm meeting the frame which superglued OK and on the other arm as it goes over my ear. Tue - I went out to finish my walking tour of old Delhi sites - Haus Khas walk see expressindia.com article ..My Map is on page 526t - Last time in walking around South Delhi I had finished as I didn't get time to check Haus Khas. First I took the wrong buses, which meant I passed the west side of Siri fort and I could see the ruins are more on that side. I got to the IIT College and walked to a Rose Garden. Through the other side I came to the Deer Park. It had 2 abandoned Mosque mausaleums, but not much. To the east is a kind of concrete bazaar of trendy art shops. Even though I'm not interested in those shops I went that way. Suddenly for the second time I found a large ruin complex just hidden away just past those shops. - This was the Haus Khas Complex - First a few buildings overlooking a 1 hectare square pond to the west. Then there's another set of buildings on the south side you can climb around. Once again the amazing thing is there's a set of ruins 500 year old and no one's making a big deal of it. No signs, no ticket desk. - I walked East along the road and then passed 2 more large dome mauseleums, one of which you can climb for views across the city. - Across the other side of Aurebino I found a walled village. There used to be many such walled villages in Delhi, and most were destroyed and the stones stolen, but this was preserved as one family owned it all. I only saw the main section along the main road, I couldn't see how to get inside. - Still Bloody Hot - One job was to sell my India guidebooks and get a Ukraine book, but I did these through the CS Ukraine board. And even yhough Kyiv is expensive someone offered to host me - Wed - Flew Out - India stressful to the last moment - I had an 8pm flight- In any other country this is pretty easy : you just go to the place where the airpot bus is and go. But in India things remained dirt cheap, but stressful to the last moment. - I was told I could catch the bus at the station, but it would be more frequent from Connaught place. I took a local bus whose AC was broken. - The airport bus is supposed to leave from nearby the India tourist information office but they said no go to the station. -So I went to check with Delhi tourist info, first I passed one those fake offices selling Kashmir tours. -At the proper office they sent me back to outside India Tourism. They told me the Ex-servicemens Airport Bus Company had stopped running, but didn't seem to realize that the Delhi Public Transport Buses which had taken over used the road one block over. - Eventually I was at the right stop which is outside the Mughal Astronomy observatory ruins. But in an hour no Airport bus passed. -Bus 519 passed every 5 minutes so on the Avis drivers advice I took that as he said it goes to the airport entrance. But now it was rush hour so this bus took an hour. -Then someone told me to cross the road for the airport minibus, but they were wrong. So I wasted 20 minutes there as the middle of the road had a barbed wire fence. Back outside the Radisson hotel I took the airport minibus full of workers for 10Rp, but it stopped 800m short of departures so I had to run. So now I was shattered all my clothes were wet. - It was 6.50pm and checkin closed at 7.15pm so I went to change clothes. - Anyway I made it. - I arrived in Shahjah a few hours later, but had to sleep on the floor until my Kyiv flight on Thursday morning. By then my PDA phone had stopped working cos of the heat, sweat and shaking. - I added some more Conclusions India Opinions 5