After arriving in New Delhi, those in my car (Noel, Wayne, Nicholas and I) went to the Khan Market to do some shopping. The book prices in the Khan market, even for American-authored books, were amazing. I bought a copy of Age of Kali by William Dalrymple, recommended by a number of SEM alumni and relevant to this trip since it contains reference to the murder of Freddy Gomes (the son of our Senior gym teacher, "Stuffy Gomes).After arriving at the Shervani Hotel, I took it easy while awaiting the arrival of Louie and Margaret, who had been in a separate car and gone on a different shopping expedition. Wayne was dropped off at the Delhi Gymkhana and Noel went on to the friends he and the family were staying with.
While waiting, I tried to use the hotel PC to update my travel blog which I was unable to complete while in Nainital due to lack of computer resources and time. Unfortunately, the Internet was acting kind of finicky and eventually crashed, so I thought it best to pick up on "the blog" while in Goa.
Louie, Margaret and I had originally planned to see the Sound and Light Show at the Red Fort the evening we got back from Nainital, since we had skipped the Fort previously due to the heat and since our driver had convinced us to see the show.
However, we had subsequently made plans to have dinner later that evening with Wayne Gonslaves, Rajeev Singh (who had come in the night before, by train, from Nainital with his daughter) and Prabhakar Singh (who had been unable to make it up to Nainital). So, the three of us decided to visit the Dilli Haat, the famous crafts market in Delhi, since we had had few opportunities to shop on our trip, and I needed some beads for my sister-in-law. Since we needed a ride there and back, and then to dinner, we hired a car for the evening.
The Dilli Haat had a lot of neat Indian stuff in it (mostly cloth items), but nothing was marked with a price, so it was pretty exhausting haggling in the heat, although Louie became quite masterful at it after visiting a few stalls and figuring out everyone's bottom-line. 
After killing a few hours there, we headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. Dinner was originally to be at the Delhi Gymkhana (famous for its Bloody Marys, although Noel had set a pretty high bar for these in Nainital), but Rajeev and Prabhakar wanted to take us to the Shack Seafood Lounge & Bar, which is we ended up after drinks at the Gymkhana. [Note: Bloody Mary's at the Gymkhana were very good, but Noel's were still best.]
Food at the Shack was superb, and we closed the place down.
After we arrived back at the hotel, I packed for my flight to Goa the next day.
1 comment:
This is turning out to be a very well put together travelogue and fun to read.
Just a thought.. how come Louis ( of all people) got good at the negotiations at Dilli Haat? Is it possible they couldn't read the sign on his forehead, because it was in English????
- Noel
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