Delhi

And then before we knew it we were on a train heading back to New Delhi.  We were a bit apprehensive after our bemusing arrival six weeks earlier but having acclimatised to India we realised the it's the same as any other city.  It was great to arrive at the train station knowing where we were.  We found a sweet little hostel near the main bazaar and knew exactly where to go for a cold beer.  We had some drinks with a group of Irish guys with a guitar playing anything from 'molly malone' to an acoustic rap version of 'it's getting hot in here...'

As our last sight-seeing trip we went to Qutb Minar in south Delhi which has one of the oldest Mosques and some old tombs. 

 It also has the Iron Pillar, a 7.5 meter black pillar that has baffled scientists by not rusting and by being made of wrought Iron about 1500 years before the process was used elsewhere.  This place was important to Dan having seen a photo of Jon in that spot some years before.  He hadn't remembered it's location though so after asking almost everyone we met, "have you been to the giant black pole?" it was lovely closure to our trip to be able to take this shot:

We fly to Thailand next, though because of the flooding we have decided to fly out to Penang, in Malaysia, after only one day.  It'll be strange to leave India - we feel like we're just getting the hang of it.  It has been such an intense experience I think we're going to need to digest things that have happened for some time, but we're both looking forward to coming back.  It is not an easy country to just step into but it's amazingly chaotic layers work somehow.  The sheer number of people and ways of interacting force you to look outside of individuality and stop taking things personally.  The ego learns that there is only a place for you because you happen to be the one taking up that space, so if you want to progress than you'd better stick out your elbows and make some noise.

(at the airport - bye bye India!)