We woke up around 7.30am, having slept much better than many hostels we've stayed in and went to the train station tourist info centre with low expectations. Unlike Delhi, they were surprisingly useful - which I guess isn't too difficult when there are 3 people working in a service which their signing book seemed to suggest recieves about 3 sets of tourists per day. They organised a tuk tuk to hostel and gave us some leaflets.
Despite his insistence that the driver knew where it was, we had to stop for directions a few times. This was hardly surprising when there were no signs to say it was the right place and just bore a little plaque saying "children's newspaper". They gave us breakfast when we went in though so we decided to stay, even though it seemed to be running itself and we couldn't work out who owned it.
It was a pretty weird place.Most of the people at breakfast were staying there long term because they were students. We met a few, very serious, intellectuals who were learning Hindi and Sanskrit and writing PhD papers so it wasn't quite the same atmosphere as a usual hostel.
We went for a walk and found that the new town was really quite modern compared to a lot of places we'd seen. We bumped into a Dutch/Indian guest from the hotel, Safikom, and decided to stick with her since she was shopping and we wanted an excuse to explore.
After following several conradictory directions given by Indians, we finally got to Janpath market and found it closed. Safikom looked at her map and decided to walk to the "Chowk" (a market/bazaar). While we were trying to orient ourselves using her map, we were steadily surrounded by an increasing number of people crowding around the map and just joining in looking at it.
We set off and were followed by a number cycle rickshaw wallahs for ages. They kept telling us it was quite far and although we didn't believe them and quite fancied a proper walk, they just kept pace with us. Eventually, I told one of them that I'd pedal and he could get in the back. He agreed and I rode most of the way, to the amazement and amusement of passers-by and other rickshaw drivers. Matt even climbed on part-way through. It was really good fun but his seat was sharp, I was a little concerned about hitting congestion and scraping a car and the last hill was quite a big one, so I gave up and we swopped back. I was glad to see that even the rikshaw guy didn't pedal and pulled us up instead. We offered to pay him (they ought to sell the idea as entertainment - people want to steer elephants and camels to why not rickshaws?) but he refused.
Eventually arrive at Chowk and wander round. Chowk alleys are crazy, they are only just wide enough for two people but motorbikes, over-loaded hand carts and people carrying laods three times their size all tear down it (usually at speed) and it all gets jammed.
We tried some physalis which was amazing. It was like kiwi fruit, strawberry and other lovely fruit all rolled into one. And they tie up the leaves so they look like a bunch of grapes.
Poor Matt wore flip flops as he thought we were going to sit in a park so his feet were getting pretty sore. Since we were with Safikom and she spoke Hindi, we decided to go back in a Tempo - a small shared taxi/large tuk tuk that follows fixed routes. None seemed to go where we wanted so we gave up and went in a tuk tuk - we did see a ladyboy though so all wasn't lost!
Since we hadn't seen a single internet cafe all day, we continued walking past our hostel to one that Safikom had seen the day before. Matt was very brave with his sore feet! We booked train tickets to Gorakhpur as it is on the route to crossing to Nepal. We had to get 2nd class sitting though instead of our usual scruuby but reasonable 'sleeper' so that might be interesting!
Back at the hostel we finally met the owner but still did not sign in. We had some of the communal food and chatted to a German couple who had just come from Nepal to get some tips.
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