- Näytä matka
- Lisää toivelistallePoista toivelistalta
- Jaa
- 29.11.2011 klo 19.29
- 🌙 66 °F
- Korkeus: 732 ft
- IntiaNational Capital Territory of DelhiNew Delhi28°37’35” N 77°14’25” E
A Very Long Day
29. marraskuuta 2011, Intia ⋅ 🌙 66 °F
At o’dark hundred, the wake up call came in. We were out of the hotel by 8am and headed for Delhi, via a couple of detours. Our first distraction was the Palace of Winds (aka Hawa Mahal). It lies within the walled “Pink City” of Jaipur. The nickname comes from the color of the walls and all the buildings inside. For the visit of the Prince of Wales, the city’s buildings were painted pink and the city code now mandates it. The Palace of Winds is actually a façade of numerous and ornate balconies commanding a presence over the street bazaar below. Each window of the building is screened, outlined by white painted designs. We took a quick gander at the building before plunging headfirst into the bazaar. The dealers offer ridiculous prices, which I returned happily. For example, I had my eye on a shawl, which he would reluctantly let me have for 4000R (that’s $90). “Yeah, I’ll give you 500R,” I countered (that’s $10). He looked at me with grave insult and started referring to me as “madam.” He came down a couple thousand, and so I went up to 700R. Feigning disgust, he then explained to me that this isn’t junk, he needs to make a living, the first sale of the day is the most important (please refer to Korean blog to see identical ploys), etc. We haggled a little more, and I walked out with two for $15. I strutted proudly down the street until running into the Thai woman from our tour group. She was cutthroat, “How much you get your shawls for?” she asked. I pumped up my chest and gave her the rock bottom deal. She sneered her evil sneer, “Should have come with me. I get three for ten dollar.” It was at that moment I realized I could never take a tour longer than a few days; otherwise, I might kill an innocent tourist by accident. Although we enjoyed almost all our other tour friends, the Thai lady and the fat family were a little much to bear from the beginning. But I digress, again.
From the bazaar, we boarded the bus and headed north toward Delhi. We stopped at another shopping area before leaving the city limits. Kim drained my pockets for silk scarves, which were too nice to pass up, although I passed them up with no difficulty.
The trip to Delhi was long, even though we were on the “Express”way. When I think of the word express, I think “autobahn” or I-80 in Wyoming. Personally, I think it’s stretching the term “express” if the fastest vehicle tops out at about 80kph (about 50mph), there is no minimum speed limit (for example how slow things like donkey carts, rickshaws, and camels move), and people frequently park in the slow lane. And construction. Anyway, I’m grateful because all I could think about was how it would have been on the non-expressway. The trip was broken up with lunch at the “Midway Hotel” which I can’t verify for you is actually midway between Jaipur and Delhi, but it was definitely halfway between breakfast and dinner. We enjoyed a lovely meal and got right back on the road to Delhi. Oh, I must tell you this…at lunch we found out that our tour friends Keith and Aaryn were at the observatory a little later than us yesterday. Guess what? A guy approached them with more of their photos on the elephant from the Amber Fort!!! Really. Half a day later and many miles in town. Wow.
We arrived in Delhi by 4:30 and said goodbye to about half of our group. They were returning to the Metropolitan Hotel to rest up for their next adventure. Some were continuing to travel to other parts of India, and our new friends, Robert and Clark, were going to Nepal for a week. The rest of us took respite at a hotel near the airport, where we watched some cricket (luckily, my schooling from Judy in Barbados came in handy), drank some tea, and grabbed dinner. Unfortunately, Kim and I were on the latest flight but there was only one transfer going to the airport, so we had to wait at the airport until our 3am flight. Imagine my surprise when the security people wouldn’t let us in the airport to wait. “You must have a flight in the next six hours to enter,” the big guy said to me. Fortunately, he followed up this disappointing news with directions to the visitors’ waiting area, “You can wait there.”
So, seven hours later, we boarded our flight to Frankfurt, where we only had to wait five hours for our connection to Denver. It made for a terribly long day, but we are grateful, as always, to be in Colorado, where people don’t honk much, the air is brisk, the sky is really blue, and there’s not a single hawker in sight. At least not yet.
Top Ten
10. Cows controlling the progress of traffic
9. Eating Indian food every day until you get sick
8. Watching Kim use a barf bag on the plane. It really can hold the entire contents of your stomach!
7. Fresh naan every day
6. Guessing where the guy with the pictures might next show up. I’m going to adopt that attitude toward my work.
5. Watching little girls make cow poop patties to sell for fire fuel
4. Meeting another person who wants to travel to Iran and enjoying his company. Sorry Kim...
3. Enjoying the gracious and gentle people of India, who really like us from Obamaland (their term, not mine-although I might start using it)
2. Riding an elephant
1. Seeing the Taj Mahal in person. Wow.Lue lisää