Delhi II

Friday 21st November, 2008 (Al)
Wend phoned the Aust High Commission and booked an appointment for 2pm. We spent the morning window shopping and forwarding our excess luggage to a packing shop to then be forwarded by post to Perth. The guy who packed our box used an old pulley scale to weigh our box and deemed it 14kg. Seeing as though my backpack weighed 14kg and the box felt lighter, it seemed not right, but we left our details with him and he seemed legit otherwise. We went to the High Commission a few km away ( a new swish building which stood out compared to most other buildings in Delhi) and Wend got her visa. Finally….confirmation. We headed back and after thinking about it, decided to get another opinion on the weight of the package to send home. I asked him to re-weigh the box using an electronic scale. The guy across the road had one so we asked to use it. 11 kg…..mmm… a few kg difference and nearly 800 rupees difference in price. The man accepted his error (I wonder how many other people he has fooled with his dodgy weigh scale) and gave us the difference. I suspect our package will never actually be sent and our clothes are now being flogged off somewhere on the main bazaar.

We picked up our bags from the hotel later than night and headed for the New Delhi station to get a train to Varanasi, a place we reluctantly booked as it was out of the way, we were behind schedule and many people had told us they hated it. Fabian had told us it was a place he loved and we had to see for ourselves as it represented the heart of India so we bit the bullet and got the o/n train there. What awaits us?