Ready for Home

Cindy at Darshan and Murli's

7/14/07
Well the flight to Mumbai and then on to Delhi was fairly boring.  We tried to get a pre-paid taxi to Darshan and Murli’s and had a bit of trouble since there was a huge line of people waiting (and mostly cutting around other waiting people) to hop in cabs.  We finally walked all the way to the back of the line and three different cabbies wouldn’t take us to Shivalik Enclave so finally we just climbed in a guy’s old piece of shit Ambassador (non-AC) for a very hot taxi ride through late rush-hour traffic in Delhi.  The cabbie seemed confused about where to go so we called Murli on the cell and he thankfully gave him directions.

Jyanti the housekeeper

When we got back to their house, we ended up ordering our new favorite take-out meal, Chicken Kathi Rolls for dinner and stayed up talking with Murli and Darshan about our travels, etc.  Theo (their daughter’s dog) was happy to see us and gnaw on my arm a bit.  We aren’t sure what to do tomorrow since we leave just after midnight but we don’t want to just sit around all day feeling like condemned people so we will try to figure out something in the morning.

7/15/07
Well we woke to another stellar Jyanti breakfast - Jyanti is their housekeeper and cooks a mean paratha and Indian scrambled eggs.  Afterwards, we moped around trying to figure out what to do, eventually deciding that, since we would need a cab to the airport tonight, we might as well just get one for the day and try to see some of the sights that we have so far missed in Delhi.

Darshan

Murli and Darshan graciously offered to let us leave our bags and stay until it was time for our flight so we bailed on the idea of using Hilton points to go swim at the Hilton in Gurgaon and hang while we wait for the flight.

The taxi guy was a little lost and confused and showed up a bit late but eventually took us several places around Delhi including the very pretty and clean Lodi Gardens, Gurudwara Bangla Sahib which is a large, Sikh temple and to

Rajgaht which is the Mahatma Gandi Memorial park where we saw the cool looking Saddhu gathering flower petals to place on the tomb.

Murli

We stopped by the Dili Haat Market for Cindy to buy some last minute gifts with the few rupees we had remaining.   She hemmed and hawed over one particular bracelet (this one is for her…) and eventually bought it and a shawl.  I roamed around taking pictures of the cool little Rajasthani elephants while she shopped.  I did end up talking with two Kashmiri kids trying to convince me to buy something.  I told them that we were down to our last 400 Rupees and that my wife was haggling over a bracelet but that if she had anything left, she could talk to them.  They asked how long we had been in India and when I told them almost four months, they asked if we went to Kashmir.  I said no but that we would have liked to but it’s not a great time for westerners to be there and that I had visited a long time ago.

Theo the dog

We got back to the house and were treated to a huge and awesome dinner from Rimpys by Murli and Darshan.  They are the nicest, most gracious people and we have enjoyed staying with them.  One day hopefully they will show up in Newport and let us return the hospitality!  After dinner we packed up, said goodbye to Theo, Jyanthi, Darshan and Murli and headed to the airport.  Sixteen hours in the air to Chicago �" oh boy!  Security was really fairly tight but we made it through without hassles and into our bulkhead seats for the long journey home.  We struck up a conversation with one of the flight attendants who was really nice and ended up comping us a couple drinks.  She was very curious about our travels and we talked with her for a bit before she had to go off to first class where she later told us it sucked.  She said “Everyone up there are arrogant Indians who think I am there slave!”  Too funny.  The big question of the evening is do we take Ambien or wait until we get home???