We left the calm of Sanskriti around 9-15am, and borded our coach for the 45 minute drive to the Surunjakind arts and craft festival on the outskirts of Delhi. It's an annual event held to celebrate the diversity of work and culture from all the regions of India - I think we all found the most impressive aspects were the huge variety of textiles and the mind boggling dance and music performances. We were into complete visual overload. We had planned a couple of hours at the mela before we carried on to Agra, our base for the next 2 days, but had difficulty dragging ourselves away after about 4 hours.
The rest of the day and the journey I admit to finding quite difficult. I think I saw more people on the roads travelling or at the side of the road - living, sleeping, eating, working, earning their living - than I have ever seen in the whole of my life before. I live in a small hamlet of 3 houses in a quiet part of the Lake District - if I want a Sunday paper I have a 16 mile round trip to get one. To see so much seething humanity on the move is quite something. Bullock carts, camel carts, horses travelling in the back of pick-up trucks, tuk-tuks, more lorries parked up at the side of the road than you would ever thought existed, herds of sheep and goats being shepherded along the hard shoulder of the dual carriageways, motor-bikes, push bikes and scooters and crowds of pedestrians of biblical proportions - proved all too much for a small town girl. The cacophony of the gridlock at the level crossing will be with me forever. We made Agra around 7pm.... just grateful to be alive.
The rest of the day and the journey I admit to finding quite difficult. I think I saw more people on the roads travelling or at the side of the road - living, sleeping, eating, working, earning their living - than I have ever seen in the whole of my life before. I live in a small hamlet of 3 houses in a quiet part of the Lake District - if I want a Sunday paper I have a 16 mile round trip to get one. To see so much seething humanity on the move is quite something. Bullock carts, camel carts, horses travelling in the back of pick-up trucks, tuk-tuks, more lorries parked up at the side of the road than you would ever thought existed, herds of sheep and goats being shepherded along the hard shoulder of the dual carriageways, motor-bikes, push bikes and scooters and crowds of pedestrians of biblical proportions - proved all too much for a small town girl. The cacophony of the gridlock at the level crossing will be with me forever. We made Agra around 7pm.... just grateful to be alive.
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