The first stop was Amritsar and of course the Golden Temple. The temple itself is impressive enough but together with the hundreds of visiting Sikhs, some bathing in the holy lake whilst others just take in their most sacred site, it was an unforgettable experience.
After Amritsar we moved on to Delhi to visit Barbara and Dave, friends from Austria, who were visiting family there. They'd promised us a Hotel room in Delhi as a wedding present. So for five nights we left our "home" and relaxed in luxury.
Just waking up in the morning and standing up without hitting my head off the roof was luxury enough but that together with a bath and a television was pure indulgence. Of course we became addicted to Indian T.V. especially the music channels. We soon wanted to buy videos of every singer surrounded by their group of sparkling golden saree'd dancers, but then we came back down to earth and realised we don't even have a T.V. never mind a video!
We did manage to tear ourselves away from the T.V. though and we visited some of Delhi's many temples and ruins. But the most exciting thing about Dehli is the traffic. We'd already spent hours trying to squeeze our way though the windy streets of Old Dehli where auto-rickshaws, bicycles and cows all battle for space and escaping without a new scratch or bump is impossible. Life was to get even more exciting though...
As we were driving towards our hotel in Daves car with Rupert following in Lucky Lukethe inevitable happened, an auto-rickshaw rammed into the back of Daves car. This is normal for Dehli and wouldn't have been a big problem except for the fact that for some unknown reason this auto-rickshaw had a metal spike sticking out of the front. Unfortunately for the richshaw man, the spike had rammed a hole into the back of Daves car. As usual the road was soon blocked with the car, auto-rickshaw and the 50 interested onlookers so Dave moved the car into a side street. The rickshaw man, seeing his one chance of escape leapt into his auto-rickshaw and zoomed off into the distance in a cloud of blue smoke.
This was an unlucky day though for our rickshaw man as he hadn't noticed Rupert and the Lucky Luke van!
What followed is normally only seen in the best hollywood movies. Rupert raced off, hot on the trail of the escaping Rickshaw man, beeping his horn constantly.
The peaceful street eruped into action as people leapt out of the way of Rupert and his speeding van. Close behind the rickshaw, he raced around the corner into the next street on 2 wheels knocking over a fruit stall on the way (ok so I exaggerated a bit there).
Now with only millimetres between them Lucky Luke began to push his way past forcing the rickshaw off the road and eventually into a potato stall. At this moment Dave, who had sped off in the other direction (also collecting a few dents and scratches on the way), appeared and blocked the road from the other side. Now sandwiched between Daves car and Lucky Lucke there was no escape, it was off to the police station with him.
If he is ever allowed to drive his auto-rickshaw again. I reckon the first thing he'll do is saw off the ridiculous spike on the front.
