Day 223 - New Delhi, India - 17th March, 2005

We have been in India for nearly 3 weeks now and I haven't written a single Indian blog. What goes?

Well I have spent a bit of time catching up on the blog with previous destinations and I have organised a load of photos. These photos will shortly be appearing as links just on the right hand side of this page. Other than that I have to say we have been having a little bit of a relaxing time.

When we arrived here my sister Suzanne(who has 2 boys around the same ages as ours) was mid way through a one month yoga teachers course in southern India. My mother and her husband Paul were here helping to look after them and they both stayed for about 5 days after we arrived. So Mum has been tracing the same route around the world as we have. She started in Canada in August last year, went back to France mid September, came back to Canada in December, came with us to Texas, went back to to Canada, went back to France, then flew to India in February. A pretty busy woman for a 77 year old.

Suzanne arrived back in New Delhi on Monday this week and it's been great to catch up with her and for her boys to have their Mum back after a month. Suzanne's husband Rob works in the oil business here and the family are in their third year of being in India. Previously they were in Pakistan for 5 years and before that 3 or 4 years in Australia. She and her family have never lived in England apart from a brief 6 month period when she was evacuated from Pakistan when there was trouble there.

The family here a very used to the expatriate lifestyle which is of course quite alien to us (but we are getting used to it!). There will be more of that later. The 2 boys attend the American school here in New Delhi and the family tries to make it back to the UK every summer for a month or 6 weeks every year to meet up with friends and family.

Apart from our brief stop over in Bangkok, this has been our first visit to a third world or emerging country. After the luxury of the US and Japan we are enjoying the lifestyle of the expatriate but living in a country where 88% of the population earn less than $2 per day and 40% earn less than $1 per day. We just went to the cash machine and took out 10,000 rupees (about £128) which is what we are currently spending in a week on frivolities but for most people here represents 6 months earnings. Seems very strange to us but then there are many things that are strange to us like: why are there herds of cattle walking down the centre of all the main roads in New Delhi? Actually some of the cattle sit in the middle of these roads bringing the traffic to a standstill. There has never in my experience been an attempt to move one.

Here are the cattle. Just ambling along the road. The road is 3 lanes wide and the cars are often travelling at 50 mph. During the rush hour they can bring the whole place to a standstill. They are well fed (although I have never seen them eat anything) and apparently they go "home" every night so that they can be milked. God bless them