When planning this trip, I was a little freaked out about traveling India on our own. So we booked a 15 day tour with Gate 1 Travel about in the middle. This was our safety net and our time to relax a little with all the planning and figuring things out on our own (that is hard work) and let someone else take care of everything for a while. The hotel in Delhi where we will meet the tour, The Eros Hotel, is lovely and secure, though a little sterile and snooty. You have to stop the car and they check under the hood and in the trunk to even get into the complex. Then you have go through metal detectors to get into the hotel….every time you go in and out! And you have to put your key in to access any floor in the elevator. The restaurants are expensive but good. In Thailand, we had wash done for $8. We checked the prices here at the hotel, and after we stopped laughing, we called an outside laundry service. Because of the language barrier, we ended up involving the concierge and laundry cost us $62!!! Now to be fair, they ironed everything, including underwear, and every item was sealed in its own separate bag! But whatever….it is so nice to have clean clothes again!!

We arrived at our hotel in Delhi a night before our tour started. We sat by the pool for a bit and caught up on some Galavanting Geezer stuff and decided to go out to see a Bollywood movie. A twenty minute drive later we get to the cinema only to find the paper printed the time wrong. So we just headed back to the hotel; maybe we will get a chance in Mumbai.

The organized tour began at 8:30 with a tour of the Muslim Mosque Jama Masjid. The architecture was really  wonderful. We then hopped on cycle rickshaws and took a turn through Chandi Chowk, a maze of tiny alleyways bursting with life. One area was the wedding area and the tiny shops were filled with jewelry, and tapestry ribbons, and gorgeous red wedding dresses. They seemed so out of place in this dirty little neighborhood. This ride was crazy. There were about 14 bicycle rickshaws for thew whole tour and these alleyways were barely big enough for the rickshaw let alone the oncoming traffic and pedestrians, etc. We saw some great Delhi Spaghetti here (electrical wires!)

We then visited the Raj Ghat, the cremation site of Ghandi. The gardens were beautiful but we looked over at one area and there was all kinds of smoke. Then we realized that they were fogging the area for mosquitoes. The thick cloud of smoke was unbelievable. But we weren’t too worried; they were a ways off. Then some of the ladies took a detour to the restroom. They had just fogged the bathroom!!!! You couldn’t even see! But we didn’t know when the next chance to pee was going to be so we tried to hold our breath and run in and go as fast as possible. I did not even take the time to look for a western toilet: A). because I wanted to get in and out quickly and B.) I could barely see!!!!

There are 28 of us on the tour, mostly retirees. We have become friendly with a married couple from Yemen (now living in Michigan) a couple from California, a Canadian couple, two women from Minnesota, and these two 30 year old guys from Mexico and California. Everyone overall is very nice except one guy who is from the Greater New York area and very obnoxious and no one likes him. We ate lunch at a pretty expensive restaurant which was very good. We ate with 4 others and we all shared food so we got to taste 6 dishes and they were all delicious! Indian food is either not that spicy or they see 0ur white faces and do not make it spicy. It all has a great depth of flavor, though. Paneer Masala has become one of my favorites (paneer is a cheese made from cottage cheese I think) and Buzz is “suffering” through Kingfisher beer! We saw our first snake charmer entertaining outside the restaurant.

The coolest place today was the Qutab Minar built in the 1200’s and is the world’s tallest brick minaret. The intricate stonework was mind-blowing!!

A quick organizational tour meeting and to bed we go. We have very mixed feelings about this tour; we felt like we were really seeing the real India for the last week and now we are sitting high in a bus and being waited on hand and foot…..but all of these nice places are also part of the real India, too. I guess we will suffer through it. :.)