Walking in Delhi - Our hotel is near a very big junction and sometimes at rush hour it is hard to pick up a rickshaw (tuktuk - pronounced took-took) and so I'll walk a block to a less frenzied corner to flag one down, or on occasion I am soooo tired of bargaining for everything that I cannot face the game of negotiating the fare (should I pay 50c or 75c when an Indian would probably only pay 40c?) that I just walk.  This week I think I needed to walk and ended up doing close to 4 or 5 miles during the early afternoon.  I wish I had had a camera- and will probably go back over the route with one.

In many places there is a good pedestrian path but people choose instead to walk in the congested street.  I have been trying to understand this and have the following hypotheses:
a) any piece of wall seems an invitation to the menial workers/tuktuk drivers to relieve themselves in broad daylight - thus the closer to the wall the more intense the smell;
b) dogs wander all over the place and are undiscriminating in where they leave their piles - however, they wouldn't dream of relieving themselves in the stream of traffic;
c) there are frequent (inexplicable) major excavations in the middle of the the pedestrian route;
d) some places have marble or tiled paths that could be treacherous; and
e) trees sprouting up in the middle of the path seem to get right of way - paving around them rather than digging them out.