Day 74 Delhi

7:20 am. Hotel lobby. Good night's sleep, though not enough. Have ordered breakfast: two poached eggs, buttered toast, and tea no sugar. I guess today is Thursday - one week until I fly out. I like Delhi - not nearly as 'busy' as I imagined it would be. But then I've not seen that much of the place as yet. The sport's plan for today is to go by bus to Dhauj crags, two hours' drive south of Delhi, in a region called Haryana, at least according to the little photo-copied map I've got. From the guidebook, looks like an excellent crag. 9:40 am and we are sat on a bus (not Hot Rock one). And we are not going anywhere. Apparently, the driver will not go out of Delhi, unless we give him an extra 8000 rps. Trouble with this extortion is that it is a daily occurence. They won't get the extra money and we won't get to the crag. 12:50 pm. At last we have made some progress - as far as I can tell we've gone about fifteen miles if that - and now we need more petrol: we have stopped at services - massive queues for fuel; meanwhile we are in a Subway sandwich shop. The bus originally supplied has been replaced with two Bedford Rascals or somesuch. One of those journeys in which it is pointless getting stressed - clearly at this rate we are unlikely to get to the crag until it's dark.

8:35 pm and we're back at the hotel. (We are now staying in the no-star Peace Point hotel - across the road from the Stay Well and not nearly as good - unless you like the study of insects of the order of Blattaria - i.e. roaches). I assume that this hotel is simply cheaper than the Stay Well. Anyway, in the event we did get to the crag, at 3 pm. Climbed two really good routes with Sophie; she led the first on the Prow - called Aries, 5.6, a good route, and at this point no rain - but skies obviously fully laden and ready to go. I quickly got on to and led up Gemini, 5.6 again. The book said something like follow the prominent gully, over overhangs, over chockstone and up. Last twenty feet and the heavens opened. Just finished the route before I couldn't get any wetter: like climbing with a (hot) fire hose on you. Sophie did the complete thing in the monsoon rain. The rock is some sort of quartzite - very solid and very good gear placements. Everything totally soaked. Since we couldn't get any wetter I argued we should stay (Sophie was keen) and do some more climbing - but the others wanted to get back to Delhi. Pity - it was real fun to climb at Dhauj - memorable.