Sunday, October 15, Flight to Delhi, Delhi With Parents

After spending a week in Mumbai, I couldn’t wait to get back to Delhi. Goa was really nice, though. We caught our early flight. Once again, the incompetent travel agent conveniently omitted the fact that we had to fly to Mumbai before going to Delhi. And we flew Indian Airlines, the really bad national carrier. I was talking to a pilot who flies for them, and apparently they’re owned by the government, so they don’t spend any money upgrading or repairing their planes. The seats were boards. The flight left an hour late, thus continuing the streak that every plane I’ve taken in India has been delayed. The flight attendants were all old ladies in their fifties and sixties. On most Indian airlines they hire only pretty young girls, and a lucky for me a big group was on our flight for training. It’s a good job because the airlines pay for them to travel all over the world and stay in nice hotels. I was ecstatic flying over the dusty Gangetic Plains of North India. I say ‘flying’ because you couldn’t actually see the plains through the film of gray-brown smog. I realize now how North Indian Delhi is. It’s completely flat and in the middle of dusty plains. It’s blistering hot in the summer and freezing cold in the winter. A lot of Muslims live here, a legacy of the invasions. All the women wear salwar-kameez, whereas in Mumbai they wear saris. I am used to seeing bearded a ton of Punjabi Sikhs in turbans, but in Mumbai there are none. Himalayan Asians are a common sight in Delhi, as well. South Indian food is not standard in Delhi like it is in Mumbai, unless I go to a South Indian restaurant. I have missed Delhi, and I’m glad to finally be able to show them the India where I live. We got picked up and driven to Hotel Shangri-La in New Delhi. We sat by the pool for a while, before I took Mom to Chandni Chowk shopping. She was amazed by the sheer number of people out, and the pandemonium of Chandni Chowk. Most of the shops were closed, but of course they’ll take any chance to make money. We went upstairs into a dupatta shop. We spent hours looking for imperfections, checking colors, and waiting for them to stitch the raw ends. We got ripped off, but we didn’t have time to look at more stores and $100 for 20 scarves is cheap to Mom, who hasn’t been living in India for four months. After that we went to the hotel and had an amazing buffet. Because it’s Oktoberfest, they’re having a special buffet every night, with live polka music. Where are Kim Westrick and Diana Everett? The food was incredible. There were probably 75 dishes, so many that even I could not sample each one. I consumed six plates of delicious mashed potatoes, sausage, Indian food, kalamata olives, sauerkraut, fruit, salad, gourment European cheese, steak (as in beef/cow), and desserts. I took a rickshaw back home finally to Civil Lines. The weather is a lot better than when I left. As in, it’s 30 degrees Celcius (90) for a high, rather than 40 (115 F), when we got here, which I’m pretty sure is nearing uninhabitable conditions.