Saturday 18th December – Delhi

We had a nice breakfast in the rooftop restaurant of the hotel whilst watching the kites swooping around the rooftops.  Karol Bagh had changed a lot since our previous visit.  There were lots of hotels and neon signs everywhere.

We went for a walk around the market, there were nowhere near as many stalls as there used to be.  Many of the small shops had also gone.  I managed to find a stall selling watches but couldn’t get close enough to see as there were lots of people trying on sunglasses.  Will has truly gone local.  He pushed his way through, dragging me in his wake.  I picked 6 watches and Will turned to the stallholder and demanded discount.  A burly old Sikh chap standing close by laughed out loud then stood grinning at Will.  Sadly we didn’t get any discount as the watches were on sale but I was dead impressed with Will’s new Delhi-esque attitude.

We found a coffee shop and sat and waited for the menu to be brought and after a short 35 minutes it arrived. I complained to the waiter and he said it was because they were busy.  No sweetie, it is because you are disorganised and spend 10 minutes just getting a bottle of water out of the fridge.    We eventually got our drinks, drank them at warp speed due to the raging thirst we had acquired sitting waiting for so long.  

Next we visited Anjlika, our favourite pastry shop and bought some fantastic cakes and returned to our room to eat them with some tea.  Sat about for a while before venturing out for another walk around and another visit to the pastry shop, this time for a sit down lunch and a takeaway of veg puff snack to last us through till dinner.

We spoke to our travel agent, Vinay who arranged to meet us for dinner that night so we spent the rest of the afternoon watching yet another crap film.  Not quite on par with Footloose but up there.

We went to the restaurant in the hotel and had a sumptuous meal, our first non veg meal in what seemed an age and we really enjoyed it.  Vinay came bearing gifts of a of an intricate pewter key ring and some incense sticks.  We shared stories of our travels and gave him feedback on hotels, guides, attractions etc.  All too soon the evening turned late.  We were scheduled to leave the hotel at 5.30am so we all made our excuses and left.

Obviously I was struck down with can’t sleepitus whilst Will snored loudly.  I eventually thought I might be able to sleep and settled down in readiness.  I glanced at the clock and realised I could get a full 23 minutes of shut eye before having to get up, shower, pack, check out etc.   It really was the best 23 minutes of sleep you could ask for.