Day 1 in Indialand – our arrival in New Delhi

Well our friends from Catarrh Airlines delivered us safe and sound in New Delhi. We just had the one more curry and a tube or two of Kingfisher prior to landing – but, at last, here was Ron. Reaching out to the far flung spots of the Empire.

And let me tell you I've been to some far flung spots – but this was the farthest flungest and spottiest I'd ever been to. All I can say is that if this was New Delhi, this kiddie wasn't too fashed about seeing Old Delhi. Even at 4 o'clock in the morning the place was like Romford Market on Dole Day – it was heaving!!

I knew things were looking south when I saw the car that had been sent to collect me. I say 'car' but blimey I've seen newer wrecks in a scrap yard. I met up with Himalaya Charlie to hand over the rest of the spondoolicks to guarantee our places on the race – lost the MOS about four times. She's a compulsive shopper and kept going AWOL looking for duty free bargains. All I got from her was “There's no W H Smith”, “Where's the Dixons?”

However, a car had been arranged to take us from the airport to our New Delhi base. With average hotel prices around $350US, I'd decided to take the accommodation side of things under my control – and I found us somewhere for forty quid a night. Well, I mean, a bed's just a bed isn't it? So we made our way through the traffic and arrived at my mate AJ's – he was going to put us up for the night until our flight to the Himalayas. We decided on a couple of hours kip before spending a day introducing myself to my new found fans, admirers and Ronnettes in Indialand.

After breakfast we took off with our own personal driver, of course, for a day looking around this New Delhi place. And what an eye opener it was. These Indians are crazy!! There were cows and camels all over the place – dogs, both dead and alive in the street – they'd obviously never heard of tarmac roads – and they certainly left a tad to be desired when it came to driving, eating and other matters of a more personal and hygienic nature. In short, after an hour of the bustle, noise, smells, animals, beggars, hawkers, scammers and fixers this kiddie was beginning to lose the old sense of humour. As well as half the planet there either trying to sell me something or lift my leg, the place was heaving with Australian people.

They seemed to be perfectly at home with the hygiene standards and the apparent tolerance of no footwear in public places – but they were also getting their rumps pasted by the Indians at cricket. Indeed, by about 6 o'clock in the evening the city was dominated by a strange hissing sound - which we later discovered to be the population of Indialand collectively wetting itself at the plight of the poor colonials.

However, on the positive side, we did see some pretty sites – we saw a big red fort and, just like on the John Wayne films it was being attacked by Indians. The cowboys were also there but rather than fighting the Indialand they were focused on trying to sell me Indian antiques. I told them I was already married but my attempt at humour fell on deaf ears.

But the strangest thing did happen at the Red Fort – I kept getting asked for my photograph. I had already decided that I was going to dress to impress – and my all red-number seemed to be popular amongst the Indian chaps. This was more like what I was expecting and I was just glad into bring a little ray of sunshine into their otherwise humble existence.

Found a great curry house in Connaught Place – and after a couple of bottles of Baron's and a Tikka Masala I was up for anything. One thing that did annoy this kiddie though. Now I'm not racist – I used to have a friend from Yorkshire – but I was a little put out when I found out that the cost of going to see old stuff in India is much more expensive for foreigners. So, for non foreigners, it was 10 whoopees to go in the Red Fort – but for foreigners it was 250 whoopees. Now I don't have a problem with that per se – after all why should we subsidise Johnny Foreigner? But I tell you what I had the devil of a job persuading the Indians that I wasn't a foreigner!! They tried to accuse me of being foreign – when it was perfectly obvious to me and anybody else that they were the foreigners! The cheek of it. So, to cut a long story short, we had a good hour and a half argy bargy over the issue but in the end the MOS was so desperate to buy an elephant from one of the shops that she paid the damned money.

The strange thing is that that it wasn't the only time I was called a foreigner on this trip – and by the end of it all I was getting a little hacked off with it. Anyway we did the sights and went back to AJ's for a kip. Course being Friday night we had to go out so we went to the New Delhi equivalent of the Dog and Duck – they called it the Crown Plaza. Apparently I embarrassed the Half Share and MOS by asking for the pool table – and I thought the game was inventified out there!

We had a couple of snifters there then moved on to somewhere called Pebble Road, where after another curry I made some attempt at a joke and called the place the Pebble Dash – not funny says MOS who was, by this time heavily laden with shopping. Her obsession with trying to find a bargain was already having a profound effect on the Indian economy.

After the curry and a nightcap, your man here was feeling a bit overtrained so I decided to take the lead in getting us back to AJ's. They have these strange little motorised things called Put Puts or Tup Tups – cheap as chips and the only way to travel at 50 mph on three wheels whilst blindfolded. Kind of like travelling in a Reliant Robin on cocaine! So on we climbed and asked us to take us back to AJ's.

Slight technical hitch was that we didn't have his address – so it did take us some hours travelling the streets of New Delhi until finally we found our bed. How we found the place God only knows – headlights seem to be optional. No street lights, potholes and traffic that seems to select the left or right hand side of the road by tossing a coin.

Anyway we finally ended up home and after a nightcap with my new friend AJ it was off to bed. It was only after leaving AJ that I realised he still hadn't asked my for my autograph and I made a mental note to rectify that in the morning.

Keep on tapering

Ron