Yes, that’s really the name of our meet hotel. Sounds good, right? Way more upscale than the last place. Huge marble hallways, a small lobby on every floor, all very colonial. The neighborhood was slightly nicer (a little less offal and garbage on the street but not much, we are still in Old Delhi.
The room was very nice. Big comforters in fancy duvets with a pretty decorative cover – maybe satin. No top sheet so it’s the duvet or nothing. We are in Delhi, remember? Ninety plus degrees and 70% humidity.
Thank goodness for, the A/C and fan.
I went to be about 10:30 after a hot and eventful, day. The air conditioner stopped after about 20 minutes. No, combination of,, button pushing on the remote was to start it again so I hope the fan holds out.
Ten minutes later a lovely clicking sound starts coming from the darn thing. I tried to tune it out for about 90 minutes and had, just crawled out of bed to try to find my ear plugs when Nicole came in.
She headed right down to reception and, scored a couple, top sheets and a handyman. Since etiquite forbade me showing any shoulders, ankles or, God forbid knees, I hid in the bathroom while the guy reset the breaker which conveniently was right next to the A/C unit. A very good thing since I had to get up four additional times in the night to reset the breaker. Still not sure how it could have been clicking relentlessly with the breaker popped but click it did.
While Indian food is almost universally delicious, Indian hotel continental breakfasts are far from. Toast is about the most palatable item offered. Enough said.
At eight am, we boarded our air conditioned bus. It’s pretty much a full size bus for 15 people so there’s lots of room. Six hours later, we are in Jaipur also known as the “Pink City”, so called because in honor of a visit from King Edward, the Maharaja of the day had the entire coy painted pink which is the Indian color of hospitality. They continue this tradition by keeping the city pink.
We took a walking orientation of the old city late this afternoon. The food market was a lot like in Fiji but with a better selection and more flies. We tried a street sweet called lasee. It is a yogurt drink kind of like a milkshake -very sweet. To get to our dinner location we road bicycle rickshaws and then my new favorite tuk-tuk home.
Our digs tonight are the Bissau Palace which is a converted mansion. Description only will not do this justice.
