Katie, meet Delhi

I have to confess that I am a coward. Right now it's 6.15pm and I am hiding from Delhi in my room. I'll be braver tomorrow, but after the walk I just had I need a moment to adjust. Lucky for me I have that luxury.

After an uneventful trip from the airport (I was expecting haggling, being taken the long way through Delhi, being scammed into thinking my hostel had burned down - in short, all of the things one reads about) I spent an hour at the hostel to refresh and rest then I grabbed my bag and camera and sallied forth to Connaught place.

At first I thought, oh come on, where is the India that everyone talks about. I walked down a (rather dilapitated) tree-lined avenue to reach Jantar Mantar, built 1725, which is a complex of five huge observatories, built by Jai Singh II, a ruler of Jaipur with a thing for astronomy. I now understand where Escher got his ideas.

So that was lovely. Old monuments to science, beautiful flower garden. And a man asked me to pose in a photo with his two young sons. I don't know why!

My walk around the inner circle of Connaught Place was quite different though. It's trying to be modern, modern, modern with its Starbucks and chain stores and KFC, but outside on the street there are beggars and street dogs and stalls so tiny they can only provide subsistance income.

Outside United Colours of Benetton mangy street dogs were sleeping, a skeleton-faced woman wad begging and on the inside well-fed people chose tasteful polo shirts. There are security guards and doormen to make sure these two worlds are kept separate. You can tell the middle classes because they look like they've had enough to eat all their lives. A numbe of stall holders are fine, bird-bone like. 

Outside there are red paan stains on every corner, boot blacks, food stall owners, a tiny man who looks like he's never eaten properly in his life selling cut up pieces of coconut from a basket, rich shoppers, young couples who look like they could have walked out of a mall in an American teen movie, oh and men who approach you and try to tell you where to go.

One such chap started walking alongside me at one point. 'where are you from?' 'is this your first time in India?' 'do you like India' 'don't go that way, there is nothing to see, I know a big government -approved shopping centre...' the first time this happened I went into the Nike store to try and shake him off. He waited and kept following me. Then I yelled at hito leave me alone. He did. And a nice old gentleman with white threads in his beard came to see if I was ok. He did point out that I should expect this sort of thing because 'you are in India now'. I am.

The funny this was that helful gentlemen kept approaching me. And asking the same questions in the same order with the last thing always being to point to some amazing shopping location and getting quite insistent when I didn't go there. I'm going to be a conspiricy theorist on that one

This was all just in a couple of hours this afternoon after my flight got in. L is arriving at about 1 this morning. I'm going to sleep now though. Indian streets day one have worn me out. On the bright side my dinner, which cost $2 was possibly one of the best things I've eaten in my life.