Here we are: Delhi. Very nice hotel, but 40 km from the hotel where we should be, so a little shuffling around the next morning.
Incredulous questioning by customs officer (and later by our taxi driver): You're from the US? What were you people thinking? Who could possibly vote for that man? The customs guy let us into India anyway.
Delhi archaeological history goes back about 6000 years, and has been continuously occupied for 2600 years. The streets have been continuously horn honking since the advent of the automobile. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for the local cows to evolve to being deaf so that they don't have to listen.
It's the dry season and it averages here only 1 day of rain per month, about a tenth of an inch. Rather unusually today, thunderstorms lasted from midnight until late afternoon and flooded the streets - our taxi driver thought it was more like monsoon season, but just for one day.
Today was "Republic Day" - a national holiday celebrating the new Indian constitution, effective this day in 1950 - just over 2 years after India's independence from Britain in August of 1947 - now celebrated by India's national Independence Day holiday on August 15. Independence was part of the partition of the British Indian empire into India and Pakistan, which involved up to 2 million dead, and 14 million people displaced in "the greatest mass migration in human history" according to Wikipedia. Given the day long downpour, we didn't go into the city for the big Republic Day parade.
Both of our hotels were fancier than anything that I would normally stay at in the US, and the breakfast buffet made my usual breakfast buffet at the Scottsbluff Hampton Inn look pretty lame. There were separate sections for North Indian food, South Indian food, and other stuff. Delicious, if unrecognizable to me.
And this afternoon, the hotel bakery provided us with a superb, if not quite traditional Indian fare, Tiramisu.
Our (second of the day) hotel looks out on the "Radha Swami Satang Beas" which appears to be a picnic area - maybe an acre in size - with open air covered picnic tables: reminds me of the Elks club in north Boulder.
Incredulous questioning by customs officer (and later by our taxi driver): You're from the US? What were you people thinking? Who could possibly vote for that man? The customs guy let us into India anyway.
Delhi archaeological history goes back about 6000 years, and has been continuously occupied for 2600 years. The streets have been continuously horn honking since the advent of the automobile. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for the local cows to evolve to being deaf so that they don't have to listen.
It's the dry season and it averages here only 1 day of rain per month, about a tenth of an inch. Rather unusually today, thunderstorms lasted from midnight until late afternoon and flooded the streets - our taxi driver thought it was more like monsoon season, but just for one day.
Today was "Republic Day" - a national holiday celebrating the new Indian constitution, effective this day in 1950 - just over 2 years after India's independence from Britain in August of 1947 - now celebrated by India's national Independence Day holiday on August 15. Independence was part of the partition of the British Indian empire into India and Pakistan, which involved up to 2 million dead, and 14 million people displaced in "the greatest mass migration in human history" according to Wikipedia. Given the day long downpour, we didn't go into the city for the big Republic Day parade.
Both of our hotels were fancier than anything that I would normally stay at in the US, and the breakfast buffet made my usual breakfast buffet at the Scottsbluff Hampton Inn look pretty lame. There were separate sections for North Indian food, South Indian food, and other stuff. Delicious, if unrecognizable to me.
And this afternoon, the hotel bakery provided us with a superb, if not quite traditional Indian fare, Tiramisu.
Our (second of the day) hotel looks out on the "Radha Swami Satang Beas" which appears to be a picnic area - maybe an acre in size - with open air covered picnic tables: reminds me of the Elks club in north Boulder.
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