A whole new world...a dazzling place I never knew

          After packing our rooms (and realizing we might have shopped a bit too much) we said good-bye to Trichy and safely made it to our connecting flights in Chennai where we then parted ways with Danielle and Emily.  Dawn and I caught our flight to Delhi (15 minutes before it took off)(Jet Airways likes to really push it with those connections) and spent three more hours in the air before landing in New Delhi. While overhead, we saw an entire section of the city go to a black out- it was quite a sight! 

          We arranged a tour for the next few days and expected to see our driver waiting with a placard when we left the airport...so you can imagine our surprise when we didn't see our names on any placard...anywhere.  We tried not to panic and roamed for about an hour before finally calling (and spending a small fortune in international cellphone fees) all of the numbers I had listed for the company we arranged.  After some more time and finally discovering the miscommunication we met up with our driver around 10pm and were on our way! 

         We were thrilled when we finally arrived at our hotel and western amenities awaited us (complete with a hot shower, comfy bed and even some english TV!) We fell asleep quickly and remained asleep long past our alarm (whoops!) but we made it on time for our day full of activities.  I can't possibly describe all that we saw today (it was over 8 hours of sight-seeing) but they were the most incredible temples, tombs, and displays of architecture I have ever seen.

A rickshaw ride through Old Delhi

Just some monkeys...eating bananas...on electrical wires

I call this "why India has BlackOuts"

Me outside Humayun's Tomb

As you can see, we did a lot today! When we got back to the hotel we ordered a delicious room service meal (paratha, naan, mattar mushroom and khumb makai palak) and managed to find Harry Potter in English on TV...so basically we are the happiest humans on the planet.

P.S. North India is SO different from South India (hence the title). We finally got used to everyone around us speaking Tamil and now everyone is speaking Hindi! Aside from the language, Delhi is so much more diverse than Trichy. We aren't the only tourists anymore- so thats been awesome! Unfortunately, we are still young white girls and for some reason people are still asking to take their picture with us (it happened on 5 separate occasions today)-- oh well, some things never change. The food is also pretty different here, but we've really enjoyed trying different types of Indian food. Things are also much more expensive in Delhi than Trichy- but thats to be expected when going from a small town to a big city (Delhi is the capital of India by the way). The population density has increased as well (Delhi is roughly 5 times more dense than Trichy). So even though we are still in India, it is feeling like a whole new world! I love it all the same! We set off early tomorrow to go to Agra and see some different sights. 

Thanks for sticking with me!

Allie