Beethoven In Trance - Episode 54

Day 7 we woke up early becuase we had a tour scheduled. We had some breakfast, a fried pancake with potato filling, and we loved it. Our friend's father even gave us some local healthy specialty to try. It was some form of paste in a bottle that looks like calcuim supplement here in US, and it's enhanced with gold. Yes, gold. The local swear by its health benefit. The paste tastes fruity, and I don't mind the taste at all.

After the breakfast, we set off to our tour. It was a bus tour around the city Delhi, and the bus was half full. There are total 3 pair, 6 international travellers on the bus. Two French ladies, another pair of one Irish guy and English girl. The rest was all Indian. The tour started with some temple, we had to deposit our shoes before we can walk in (a common practice in our trip). The temple was nice and clean (comparing to outside of the temple). When we left to get the shoes, the guard officer showed me a brochure about the Indian temple and its history and symbols showing inside. It looks as a promotional material, and I was gladly to accept it. He then asked me for money, well, well, well, there was always a catch. I asked him how much and he told me to give him any amount I wanted. Well, I laughed and gave the brochure back to him. I think the brochure is helpful to promote Hindu religion but the charge from the guard made me turn away from getting to know more, too bad. We then went to another site where there was a very tall tower, I forgot the name. The tickets were 500 rupee for both, plus 25 rupee for video taping. It was expensive for 30 minutes of visit.

We then went to a lotus temple, a temple that built like a lotus. Before we could go to lunch, we 'conveniently' stopped in the middle of nowhere by a 'government authorized or operated' shop for some indian specialty. We walked around and saw a Taj Mahal miniature displaying on the counter, I tried to pick it up and the poles around the Taj Mahal immediately broke off as soon as I touched it. The person over the counter said it was ok. Well, great, I ain't gonna buy that. My wife wanted to get one for her coworkers and asked the guy over the counter how much it was. She asked couple times and no one answered her, and they were not like busy or anything either. My wife eventually gave up and walked out the door. Got back to the bus, we were the first group coming back from the shopping. Next arrived the Irish guy and British girl. After about 30 minutes, everybody came back except the guide and two French ladies. After one hour, French ladies came back with their purchases and said to the bus 'sorry, we swear we won't do that again'. Well, that was perfectly ok for the guide because he just got a good kick back.

We arrived another 'government operation' for lunch. It was a busy place, not fancy, a lot of locals. Menu was simple as well. I was told the place has 'vegie chow mein' when I booked the tour, so I was looking for the dish. We were also happy to see some familiar names on the menu as we just had them the day before with our friend. We order one noodle, one dosa and one bottle of water. The noodles has 'wok hei', and the dosa was ok.

We were taken to Delhi Fort, Gandhi's Museum and his tomb, and Humayum's Tomb in the afternoon. We skipped the Delhi Fort, because we thought it was similar to Agra Fort, and we didn't consider 50 minutes visit time worth 500 rupee tickets. We sat in the bus taking naps, and I took some pictures of the traffic.
I found the Gandhi's museum was very informative and a good place to visit. I hope the locals feel the same. We spent the rest of the afternoon rushing into tourist sites and rushing back to the bus. I feel we spent almost the same time on the bus and off the bus. There just wasn't enough time for us to really appreciate the places we visited.

We finished the tour around 6pm, and our friend was calling us to go to a relative's birthday party. Since her father and brother woudn't go, we had to say goodbye to them before we took off (because we would go directly to the airport after the party). We loaded the car with our luggage and said good bye. Come to think of it, we will miss them.

The birthday party was for the daughter of one of our friend's sister. Her sister's house was well decorated and spacious, like a nice apartment in Manhattan. We sat and did a little chit chat with the hosts before we started the dinner. Since the hosts were not vegetarian, we had lamb and chicken on the table. I was thrilled, I was very happy with the food, the our friend's hospitality. We took some pictures together after the dinner and I had a beer with the host before we set off to the airport. I was the the beer is a 'local beer', but the lable doesn't read like Hindu at all. It looks like an imported beer from Europe. Anyway, who cares.

We finally arrived at the airport with our friend and her mom. We said goodbye to them, and thanked them again for their generocity. We went through a series of check points in the airport and finally we got our boarding pass. The officer at the security check point requested every carry-on case to be tagged. Well, where could we find the tags then? I followed a Indian guy and he eventually opened one of the check-in counter draw searching for the tags, and he found it. We grabbed bunch, and went through the security check. We were asked if there was any nuts in our carry-on, oh yeah, cashew and almonds. The security let us pass, but I got the feeling that there might be some rules they didn't follow. But Thanks!

The waiting area was small, although the airport was modern looking. A large area was used for duty free shopping where we bought some sweets for coworkers back home. At the final boarding station, two guards really did their job asking us where we were from, where did we work, for how long, and why we visit India. Finally they let us pass.

The plane was not even half full. Everybody was comfortable. The lade sitting next to my wife noticed her henna, and started to chat and showed her own henna to my wife. She later went to the row in front of us to sleep becuase it was empty.

The dinner served on the plane is lamb curry. It was good, very meaty. After 16 hour or so's flight, we finally arrived. It was a good flight. And that was our final day of the trip.