February 23, 2016

February 23, 2016

We landed in Delhi, India in the afternoon  After clearing customs and retrieving our luggage, we easily found our tour guide waiting for us outside baggage claim.  We are greeted with a fresh lei of marigolds.  There are ten people in our group, all a little older, and all living in the US.  That includes two German citizens, one Canadian, and an Indian couple.

Our group loaded up on a small bus and drove to our hotel. Slowly. Traffic in Delhi is ridiculous. The streets teem with cars, motorcycles and ubiquitous 3-wheeled green and yellow, soft-covered motorcycle taxis. Laughingly lots of the motorcycles and these auto-rickshaws are overloaded with riders.

The hotel we check into is wonderful making Aimee very happy. We don’t usually travel first class, but in India, it is much more affordable (and wiser). Since we need to fight jet lag, we decide to take a walk to a nearby archaeological park.  It should be only a few minutes away but the sidewalks are crawling with humanity.  And noise. Honking horns seems to be a requirement of every vehicle.  It is like NYC on steroids.

We finally make it to Jantar Mantar, which is an astronomical observatory built 300 years ago. Each of the many instruments is building size and weirdly shaped and designed for tracking of the sun and planets.

Back at the hotel, we sit out at the outdoor bar and have our welcome drink.  In the moment, we accidentally ordered an appetizer of Bruschetta containing uncooked lettuce and tomato topping. Something we were told never to do.  We are both hoping we don’t get Delhi Belly!