Delhi takes no prisoners

Early tomorrow I'm moving on. Heading for Rishikesh for a few days before pressing towards Badrinath. I will be happy to get on the train and leave the city cauldron behind. Delhi is an assault on all the senses from every imaginable angle. The street noise is if anything louder and more belligerent than ever I remembered. But that might just be false memories. The Main Bazaar area presents a deafing din from dawn to midnight, horns, blaring music, drums, bells and bellows overlaid with endless where are you from's.

Then there are the sights myriad layers of visual overload, shops so crammed with stuff it's impossible to tell what you want and people of every shape,  age and nation from the grinding poor too the arrogant Mercedes driver trying to bash his way through the melee. Stop for just one second and your inviting someone to bump into you. Pause to take in a sight and your fair game for every street hawker tourist shop hustler and rickshaw wallah.

Garish colours and riots of street signage make it twice as hard to get your bearings even the familiar sights get lost in the visual storm.

And the smells a zillion odours sweet an foul rancid urine stinks from lane corner urinals blend with barbecue aromas from the street stall 2 feet away from the piss. Incense and essential oils blended with with rancid exhaust fumes topped with a smidgen sweat and sprinkled with fresh chapattis roasting at your elbow.

Talking of elbows touch is yet another battered sense, pushing through a throng to secure a place on a metro carriage and some sharp elbows will try take you down. Push your way through the Bazaar and you'll feel a tug from a street urchin or her mum begging for backsides. Jostling and tugging are a Delhi way of life as are handshakes lots of them.

No round up a Delhi's effect on the senses can be complete without a mention of taste. A strange effect where things don't quite taste like they look. an omelette in a travelers cafe may look tempting until your knife bounces of it's rubber surface or that fierce looking curry sauce from a street that turns out to be a delight until spoiled by a blast of exhaust particle overriding your taste buds defences.

Delhi takes no prisoners,  your either immersed and part of the maelstrom or you're cast adrift like a Cork bobbing on the ocean in the middle of a force 10 perfect storm.

So yes I'm looking forward to escaping the madness but I'll look forward to being back in a few months time before flying back.