Almost Home
Our driver, Annan, collected us at the Holy River Hotel at 9 am. We were relieved when we saw that his car was fairly new, undented and had seat belts. We were steeling ourselves for the 8-hour drive from Rishikesh to Delhi which had provided endless thrills on the trip north 3 weeks ago.
Annan spoke good English so we peppered him with questions about Hindu gods, the ongoing sugar cane harvest, wedding season, what happens when sacred cows die, and other important issues. We do know that if a driver hits and kills a cow he goes to jail.
In the end, the drive was only 6.5 hours before we pulled up to the Ibis Hotel in Delhi. We reached the outskirts of the city an hour before, where all commercial vehicles, including our taxi, paid a city-entry fee to what looked like a crossing guard. We drove through a beautiful treed section that housed the Indian PM’s residence and all the embassies. Just after that, we passed through the real people’s section which included cozy shacks under bridges and on sidewalks. I guess the only good thing is that they’re close to their work.
The Ibis is in a hotel enclave near the airport. The gate guard checks every car for bombs and every guest passes through a metal detector, a bag scan and a wand sweep. The female guests get a female guard and a little screened-in booth for the wand routine. We took a short walk around last night to check out the nearby World Mark mall and its food court - more security guards and metal detectors and the most upscale shops and restaurants we’d seen
since we got here.
Back at the hotel we fell into our first beers and non-vegetarian meals in a month. Tomorrow is fly-day (midnight) and we have all day to prepare for the 15-hour thrill ride home.
Annan spoke good English so we peppered him with questions about Hindu gods, the ongoing sugar cane harvest, wedding season, what happens when sacred cows die, and other important issues. We do know that if a driver hits and kills a cow he goes to jail.
In the end, the drive was only 6.5 hours before we pulled up to the Ibis Hotel in Delhi. We reached the outskirts of the city an hour before, where all commercial vehicles, including our taxi, paid a city-entry fee to what looked like a crossing guard. We drove through a beautiful treed section that housed the Indian PM’s residence and all the embassies. Just after that, we passed through the real people’s section which included cozy shacks under bridges and on sidewalks. I guess the only good thing is that they’re close to their work.
The Ibis is in a hotel enclave near the airport. The gate guard checks every car for bombs and every guest passes through a metal detector, a bag scan and a wand sweep. The female guests get a female guard and a little screened-in booth for the wand routine. We took a short walk around last night to check out the nearby World Mark mall and its food court - more security guards and metal detectors and the most upscale shops and restaurants we’d seen
Back at the hotel we fell into our first beers and non-vegetarian meals in a month. Tomorrow is fly-day (midnight) and we have all day to prepare for the 15-hour thrill ride home.
Sounds like you had an amazing trip. Safe travels home!!
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