Scenes from Delhi

Monkey and Banana, Classic Pose

Female Independence

Security Sandbags

Vijay's Family

Serving Lunch

Vijay, Sunita and Vijay's Mother

Sikh Guards at Gurdwara (Sikh Temple)

Sculpture at Modern Art Museum Made from Pots

Spinach Chaat at Veda

This was our last full day in Delhi. After breakfast we went for a long walk. The weather has been remarkably pleasant. Delhi has extremely bad air, but luckily for us it has been good while we were enjoying Delhi. On the walk strangers would come up to us and ask us if we were American. They would then chitchat with you as the subtlety guide you towards some store. I am sure they then get a commission on anything we buy. We are aware of it, but it is hard to shake them even if you explain we are just walking for exercise.

We really did want to buy a gift for Vijay and we finally allowed one of these shadows to lead us to a store. This was a typical large store that sold carpets and everything else to tourists. Once we made it clear we weren’t interested in a carpet, Cathy asked them what would be an appropriate gift to take to a Vijay’s family. They suggested a Sari – which in fact turned out to be very well received by Vijay’s wife Sunita. From the store we took a tuk-tuk back to The Imperial. Vijay picked us up and took us to his house.

This is a real treat for us, we very much want to be out of the tourist bubble, and to be invited into someone’s home is a treat. Vijay lives with his mother, and two sons in a small house in a very nice area of Delhi. They have a bedroom for the boys, kitchen and bedroom for them selves that doubles as a living room / dining room. They serve the food on the bed. It was very cozy and nice. The food was excellent, all home cooked: chicken in spinach, Gobi (Cauliflower my favorite) vegetables, Rice, etc. It was a large lunch by our standards. They ended by serving a carrot dessert we love: Gajar Halawa. I had fixed Vijays phone, for him, but they gave me a new task, they had an iPad that was locked. They didn’t know the password, I said I would try to fix it for them.

We went the Gallery of Modern Art where they had a retrospective of the development of modern art in India. Once again, showing how small the world is there were several large painting by the Englishman Thomas Daniell. We had met is relative at Shahpura Bagh earlier in the trip.

We went to a store that services iPads, but found out because it wasn’t bought in India, they couldn’t help us. I then took it back with me to the hotel. I didn’t have a cable for it, but I remembered I had read that if you don’t have a computer cable, the chances are the hotel will have a supply that guests have left. The hotel had one, but after talking on the phone to Apple here in India, I realized it wasn’t a genuine Apple Cable and wouldn’t work.

We started our packing for the flight from Delhi to Doha and then back to Los Angles.

We went out for our last dinner in India at Veda. We eat at this great restaurant every year. We always get the Gobi Manchurian (Cauliflower) and Chicken Tandoori. This time we also tried two new dishes that were excellent. Aloo (Potatoes) with Fenugreek and Spinach Chaat. We will get them again the next time we are in Delhi.

We now have to figure out how to stay up till 4:25am to catch our flight to Doha. For some reason most of the International flights out of Southeast Asia are in the middle of the night.


It is going to be a long flight home (4-½ hours to Doha, 1-½ layover, 16-½ hour flight Doha to LA), but we will be home closing the books on this wonderful adventure. This has been one of the best trips we have ever made to India. We had a wonderful time.

We write the blog so we can remember what we did, but if you also enjoyed reading parts of it, that is great also.