DAY 13 - DELHI DAY 4 – ON OUR WAY HOME:

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This, our last morning in Delhi, and India, we slept in late… almost 7am! I worked on my blogs for a while, while Manoli packed our bags and watched some TV. Did I mention their TV programming? It seemed to us that even though they had hundreds of channels; 1 out of 3 was religious, usually with chanting and instruments; 1 out of 3 was a Bollywood sort of song and dance routine, and the rest were news or soap operas. We stored our bags downstairs and went looking for a supposed supermarket south of our hotel called Big Apple. After almost getting lost several times, we finally found it. The supermarket was about the size of a 7-11 back home. Oh well, it was fun. We returned to the hotel and Manoli wanted to buy two more masala tins for our girls in the nearby Karol Barg Market. After finding several that they wanted 600 Rupees or more for (Manoli paid 250 for the 1^st one), we finally found a place where they were only 300 each and bought two. For lunch, we tried a sort of Indian Fast Food place where Manoli had a fruit salad and I ordered mutton bites and a mango smoothie. Everything was pretty good, except my mutton bites were a bit spicy.

When we returned to the hotel, it was only like 2pm, so we had to just chill at the hotel until 6:30pm when our airport transfer arrived. We got to the airport in plenty of time for our 11:45pm flight. Good thing, because there were all sorts of lines and delays all along the way. Our 14-hour flight left on time, and even made up a little time, but it was still sooooo long! We ate dinner, slept a few hours, watched TV shows and movies, napped a bit, ate “breakfast”, and finally landed in Newark. I was so glad I’d bought the memory foam pillow. Although it didn’t help that much for sleeping, it sure was nice to sit on when my butt got sore!

Just after we landed in Newark, I got a major case of diarrhea! Not sure if it was the Veggie burger in the Delhi airport, or one of the two meals we ate on the plane, but two days later I’m still trying to recover. Our flights from Newark to Houston and Houston to Pensacola were uneventful, and we finally arrived home, safe and sound, but very tired.

All in all the tour of India was fantastic, I just wish we’d done it at a cooler time of the year. The group we toured with were great, our guide was top notch, and the price was very good at only $605 each. I’d probably never consider going to India again due to the length of time it takes to get there, but I’m glad we did it. Some observations of India follow:

· India is a very religious country, with both Hinduism and Muslim faiths seeming to coexist well. I guess they don’t have any of the radical types, or Hindis are very accommodating.

· If you ever think traffic in the U.S. is terrible, go to India and take a tuk-tuk ride! Its absolutely astounding that we never saw an accident. Two-lane streets were almost always filled by 4 or 5 vehicles wide, with bicycle tuk-tuks, motorcycles, motorized tuk-tuks, cars, and animals. They say if you tied an Italian’s hands, he couldn’t talk. I think if an Indian driver didn’t have a horn, he couldn’t drive!

· When it comes to Indian food, there seems to be no such thing as “not spicy”! I and our guide said those words a number of times, but the food was always spicy to me. I guess I got used to it and am very lucky that I never had a digestive problem.

· India has soooo many people, especially the big cities like Delhi, which has something like 20 million people! There are quiet, uncrowded places like Tordi Garh, so seek out at least one to get the real feel of India and its people.

· All the big cities were extremely polluted, both with trash and the air itself. By the end of our fist day in Delhi, both my wife and I had major issues with our noses. Maybe the spicy food helps keep their sinuses clear.

· Animals are everywhere, including the major streets. We saw cows, dogs, donkeys, horses, monkeys, elephants and camels. On an interesting note, you can get in big time trouble if you injure a cow, even accidentally. Someone can claim the cow you hit was theirs since they had been feeding it, and make you pay them a handsome fee.

· Indian women can’t show bare shoulders in public, but bare midriffs are okay. Go figure! Although many women dressed plainly, there were a lot of them dressed quite elaborately, close to what you see in Bollywood movies.

· There seem to be few if any street names on signs or buildings, so don’t be surprised if your tuk-tuk driver has a hard time finding your hotel, even if its just a few blocks away. If he hasn’t been there before, he probably has only a vague idea where it is and will have to ask one or more people for directions.

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