Death Wish Taxi and Wash Your Hands

This cannot be topped. This is probably the most scarey journey I have ever been in. Mr Saruj, the driver, looked about sixteen years old and did not speak a word of english, he also had a habit of opening his door at 80km/h and spitting onto the road. This is a picture of Mr. Saruj (notice his left hand is glued to the hooter) –

Your probably thinking, yeah, well I’ve driven around the M25 at rush hour, that cannot be beaten.

Bear in mind also that the vehicle is a 4WD. See how Mr Saruj uses the “hard shoulder” as a go faster lane and puts the vehicle in any gap he finds when in traffic and uses the main beam lights to signal other road users to MOVE! I was going to leave the sound in but I decided to cover it up with music, the lyrics go “my life in the speeding car, too much to lose, my life to you” – this is what I was thinking while sitting in this car. The sound is just Mr Saruj on the hooter anyway. When we stopped at the hotel the only thing I said to the guy was – “you need to slow down Mr Saruj” he didn’t speak any English so just gave me a blank stare, waited for me to close the door behind me and then sped away into the night. Mr Saruj also ran out of petrol at one stage and he went running off to get some (after having to borrow 100Rs). Leaving me and one of my colleagues stranded in a parked vehicle in lunch time heat somewhere in Delhi near a roundabout.

Anyway, time for some nice things. Here is a picture of India Gate, isn’t it lovely, you can see the presidents home in the background. We left as soon as the tourist hagglers turned up with their postcards and books “just have a look” they demand –

This is a picture of the shops underneath CP (Connaught Place) –

This is a picture of me near Connaught Place absolutely boiling whilst carrying my 20Kg bag –

This is IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) a huge campus –

The Hindustan Times on Tuesday has a story about Delhi Belly on the front cover, and I quote – “…over half the British tourists to India developed diarrhoea, also known as Montezuma’s revenge, caused by infection of enterotoxigenic E. Coli. Statistics showed that British travellers were worst affected as many reportedly did not wash their hands…” – I found it amusing.