Paying respects to Mahatma and being stroked on the chin by a "Trannie"

Saturday morning and the living is easy! A lie in with a leisurely read at the papers and omelette and toast with "Chai" to wash it down is the order of the day! It's going to be another scorcher (well for me at any rate!)

Fully fuelled for whatever I choose to do, my conscience gives me a dunt and reminds me that there is still so much else to see in Delhi and behaving like a sloth who's constipated is not the answer, so I jump in a rickshaw and head to Gandhi's burial spot. Not realising that the journey is likely to be anything like it turned out was a error of judgement on my part! It took all my patience (I know I don't have much but what I have got) not to get out the rickshaw and clock the policeman who held us up at a junction for 20 mins while he let all the rest of the main and side roads through. Still Mother India and all that! The ride was almost 2 hours and a chiropractor woud go down well now after the journey!

The plot itself is in a sunken garden with an eternal flame burning and the devotees passing by the tomb are dignified as you'd expect for someone for whom over a billion and a quarter people still regard as almost God like. No chance of any British politician being buried in such a fashion.

Next up I went to the Lodhi Gardens, described as the lungs of Delh and with the vehicles on the road no wonder they need so many parks. This one is about the size of all the parks in Aberdeen combined, still it was shady in parts and I'd now become the owner of a cricket hat to keep the sun at bay.

This is another wee step into some metamorphis on my part, eating veggie stuff, liking cricket and drinking chai. Disconcerting or what? Maybe I'm becoming the archetypal "Brown Englishman" the colonials were trying to make the Indians.

I've broken the journey home up by stopping off in Connaught Place for some Chinese food and a Kingfisher beer since I've missed lunch at the base. I think the real reason I needed the beer was that on the way to Connaught Place a "Trannie" leant into the rickshaw and stroked my chin departing back along the line before he could interpret the words "Feck Off" and get a shave! The driver was bemused by this and to a certain extent I was too since, in all my 62 years I've never been approached by anyone gay, much less a man in a sari.
p.s. that is not a plea for any gay attention in case there is any doubt.

This kaleidescope of senses in Delhi continues to fascinate me, despite the obvious signs of poverty and begging which I have to force myself to turn a "Nelson's eye" to.

Namaste from Delhi