By this time we were vetran bus wranglers, so knew exactly what to do when we reached the Shimla bus station. We found our bus without much difficulty, since it stood out quite prominently as the only deluxe bus among many ratty looking regular and ‘semi-deluxe’ buses. We loaded our baggage and boarded without difficulty. The first portion of our time on the road treated us to more spectacular scenary on our descent from the Himalayas, while the second half was the mad melee of the Indian highway. Just past the halfway point we stopped at a road-side restaurant for a quick break where Christina and I scarfed most of a hot-and-sour soup and chicken biryani before we were hustled back onto the bus.
Our stop in Delhi was the Kashmiri Gate, where we dismounted , right on time at just past 6:00pm, and hired a taxi to take us to Gurgaon. Due to the uncertain nature of our plans we had opted to stay at a hotel overnight, and report our return in the morning. Finding this hotel turned out to be somewhat challenging, and we felt like we got pretty stellar value from our driver, who conducted us all over town looking for the address. It turned out to be significantly smaller than expected – no more than a large house which had some rooms converted to guest rooms – and staffed entirely by kids, who were more interested in visiting with each other than in customer service. We had dinner at Bernardo’s, which bills itself as “the first and only Goan restaurant in Delhi”. Christina had a coconut curry fish dish, and I allowed myself to be talked into something that was not the Vindaloo, for which Goa is famous, and which I somewhat regret, since this was my big shot at it. Dinner was excellent nonetheless, and we enjoyed having the small restaurant all to ourselves. In the evening we zoned out in front of the TV, watching a couple of movies and taking advantage of the wi-fi to catch up on our emails.
In the morning we got in touch with Sanam, who picked us up and brought us back to their home. She was appalled that we had not had them pick us up from the train, but for my part, it felt nice to take care of ourselves, just for one night, during our time in Delhi. At Nick and Sanam’s place we had a beer and updated her on our activities while we waited for Nick to return from his flight. Once he got home we left again, this time to find lunch at an Italian place they had discovered, and which served us some top-shelf pizza and pasta dishes. We relaxed for the rest of the day, then went to the Edwards home for dinner in the evening. Auntie cooked sinigang for Christina and I, since she thought We would be missing some food from home. It was really good, and actually the first time we’ve had chicken sinigang.
On Saturday Sanam had booked us some tickets to Zangoora, a broadway-slash-bollywood-slash-vegas-style show being put on at Kindom of Dreams, which is the newest and fanciest live theater venue in India. Sanam accompanied us, both to act as translator and to see the show again, for the fifth or sixth time. We departed somewhat early, since also at the Kindom of Dreams venue is Culture Gully, which is a blend of food court and bazaar. When reading the term “food court” you will immediately have the wrong picture in mind.
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In fact, it is a cluster of restaurants, each serving dishes and built to visually represent the architectural style from different major Indian states. The hungry and adventurous could do a culinary tour of India all under one sky-painted roof. We didn’t have time for that, but we did have time for a quick look around the shops at all the neat souveniers we couldn’t take with us.
Making our way to the main theater, we stopped to deposit our camera, which wasn’t allowed inside, and discovered that they offer a translation service, which we enlisted, in the form of a small wireless device with headphones. In this way we could enjoy the dialog and story of the show without Sanam having to quickly recap during slow moments. Both Christina and I enjoyed the show very much. The story is exactly what I would hope for and expect, with princes, gypsies, assassinations, forbidden love, betrayal and revenge. There was singing and dancing, elaborate costumes, special effects, and some of the most amazing set pieces I’ve seen in any live show. We thought it was brilliant, but Sanam, who has seen it so many times, let us know after the show how many things had gone wrong or had changed since she had seen it last. The thing I enjoyed most about the whole experience was that it “felt” like the kind of India you see in postcards, with gold and bright colors everywhere, elaborately decorating both buildings and people. That unreal extravagance that doesn’t really exists has been created in this place, and it was a place we enjoyed visiting.
Sunday we had planned to go to church with the family again, minus Sanam, who was to spend the day in final rehearsal for her own dance performance in the evening. Both Nick and Uncle Deepak were feeling unwell, so we decided to lay low instead, and Christina joined Sanam at a parlor for some beautification while I kept Nick company at home, where we played video games. The girls returned, Sanam departed for the dance hall, and we headed to the Edwards’ residence to pass the afternoon there. We relaxed there until it was time to go watch the dancing. Nick had picked up Sanam’s mother and a friend of hers, who would be watching the show with us. Christina and I had very much enjoyed the time we spent with Sanam’s parents previously, and were not at all sorry to be in company again. On route we collected a Tim, a friend of Nick and Sanam’s, whom Nick had enticed with the promise of “leggy lasses” on display. When we arrived I was surprised to see a huge line of people, at least several hundred long, waiting to get in, even early as we were. Sanam had said that her dance school was putting on a show, but it looked like half of Delhi had shown up, so I knew that I had underestimated the scope of the event. We found seats inside, several times, shifting to suit competing requirements until landing on those that represented the best compromise of proximity and visibility. Sanam spotted us from behind the stage and bounced and waved with enthusiasm. Nick went as close as he could to bid her final encouragements, and then the show was on. Our cameras were not allowed inside (though I did notice some smuggled pieces), so regrettably we did not get any pictures of the show. It was a tightly run performance with over 40 dance groups of various size, age, and experience, each doing their routine right on the tail of the group before. Over two hours of non-stop dancing, with no more than ten seconds between groups. The choreography of the show components themselves was impressive, to say nothing of the dancing. Production value was also higher than I had expected, with an elaborate lighting array, smoke machines, and a very powerful sound system. Sanam’s group was third in the queue, and from where we sat it looked like a flawless delivery. They were dancing to a Micheal Jackson number, which will always be a popular move with Christina, and to my untrained eye it looked like a very good performance. We scarcely had time to take it in and the next group was already going. Naturally, of all the groups, “leggy lasses” notwithstanding (and of which there were plenty), the most popular routines were those done by, or including, the young kids. Every time Auntie Pam or Christina spotted a little one they would put on huge smiles and clap their hands and sit forward to better take it in. We stayed to the end, and enjoyed ourselves the whole time. The only complaint was the extremely hard and slippery seats, which are definately not built with two hour sitting sessions in mind. After the show Sanam had the artist’s catalogue of complaints about her groups performance, but we could tell that she was quite satisfied with how it had gone. Due to the late hour, dinner options were limited, so we stopped for a bite at what seems to be the area equivalent of Peter’s Drive-In, where we had some Indian fast food before dropping off each attendee at their respective homes.
In the morning Christina and Auntie Pam had a mind to go to the spa for some treatments, and I was to go along for a haircut and to get some clothes to replace those items in my collection which were getting most well used. We went on what turned out to be a complete circle of Delhi, from the markets in Old Delhi by the Red Fort, past the Presidential estates, and around to the IGI airport. We never made it to the spa, but I got a bunch of new clothes, and Christina and I got to check off India on our secret “McDonalds around the world” list.
I had the Chicken McGrill and a Maharaja Mac. We went to the airport to pick up Auntie Pam’s sister Jenny, and their aunt who had been visiting Jenny in Kathmandu. While awaiting their flight we had coffees in the arrivals lounge of the airport and had a nice visit while watching the crowds enter and disperse as other flights cycled through the lounge. Auntie Pam dropped us back off at Nick and Sanam’s place where we turned right around again in her company to go to The Hard Rock Cafe. We had planned to visit Hard Rock both for dinner and to add to Tito Greg’s t-shirt collection. Unfortunately Nick was flying and unable to join us. We took the metro train, since that was the way Sanam best knew to get there. In India we have experienced both the most courteous and most creepy people on this trip, and the metro train is definitely the spot to go when seeking out the latter group. I took as broad and tall a stance as I could to shelter them from hungrily staring eyes, but when the trains are so crowded there is only so much you can do. We escaped the train and caught a rickshaw from the station to the mall. There we hit the Rock Shop for our goodies, and took a short lap around the mall, then sat in for some nice juicy burgers. It was good to have such an authentic taste of home. We filled our boots, and headed home. This time the ladies took The Ladies Car on the train, which was a better move, but they still had some classy fellows creeping on them. At home Sanam called the taxi service which would take us to the train station in the morning, and got us set for our pick-up.
Morning came early. So early that Christina had to uncharacteristically wake me a couple of times before i actually got up. Poor Sanam woke up with us and made sure we got away in the taxi successfully, and saw us off. The train station was an absolute breeze compared to our bus station experiences, since they had an actual board with departure times, actual train numbers, and the platform number from which to board.
The train was not as luxurious as our first class sleeper, but it was still very nice. Better, I would say, than either the bus or an airplane, since there is much more room than on a plane, and much less “turbulence” than on a bus. They came through offering snacks, breakfast, newspaper, water, and clear announcements in both Hindi and English let us know which stop we were at, and which was to come up next.
From the train station in Haridwar we hired a taxi to take us the remaining 26 kilometers to Rishikesh, which took nearly an hour to cover. On the way we passed through the “village”-y outskirts of both towns, and our route followed the famous Ganga river until we were dropped off in town.