So, it was the last day for me in Delhi. Have a couple of extra hours to kill while waiting for the driver to pick me up and do some last min sight-seeing. What to do? Play with the food. :)
My favorite - French toast.
Two more plates.
Built from scratch in 1571 by Akbar in honor of the Sufi saint Salim Chisti, who had predicted the birth of a son, this grand ghost city is carved entirely from red sandstone. It was only inhabited for 14 years, after which -- some say because of water shortages -- it was totally abandoned.
It's a bizarre experience to wander through this magnificent, architecturally fascinating monument, a site carved by the passing of time.
The design has strong Hindu and Jain design elements, indicative again of builder's embracing attitude to the conquered and their faiths.
It attracts not only the turiosts but also the producers for racy Indian MTVs.
It’s not the wimpy American way of eating chips and salsa, where one takes a piece of the Indian bread on the left hand, use a fork by the right hand to place a small scoop of chicken curry on top of the bread, and then put the combination of bread and curry into the mouth.
It’s the hard core Indian way of diving your fingers in the curry, mixing the source and rice, tearing a small piece of bread and rolling it up with some curry and sending it to the mouth. It sounds like a process which actually is for beginners. For those with intermediate and above experience, it shoud be a no brainer to eat rice with source with fingers. Thomas said that was my performance goal for the next visit to IDC.
Don’t worry about messing up the fingers with the food. In the end, you can give your fingers a good swimming in a little bowl holding some water with lime.
Look at them. I bet they have never paid this much attention to my PRD as reading the menu.
BTW, since I have had so many zero-calorie lunches, it was my turn to return the favor and take them out for a nice lunch. We went to this fancy restaurant in Delhi with the deco of a boat. The food is delicous. The price has definitely kept the restaurant empty.
Only those over-paid-and-under-delivered development managers in IDC can afford having lunches at a place like this often.
On the way to lunch, I heard Thomas yelling:” Ashok, watch out for Marsha, she is not watching the traffic.” Immediately I found myself walking in a narrow rectangular formed by Thomas and Ashok on both sides.
All right, this is not Sunnyvale where nothing happens with a bunch of nerdy Indian and Chinese engineers. This is Bangalore where pedestrians don’t have the right of way. For the sake of timely release, a dead PM before the last milestone ends might not be a good thing.
The Grand Imperial may not be the most expensive hotel in Agra, but it’s a cute little heritage property constructed about 100 years ago.
The room is very nice and well-decorated.
The staff went out of their way to make my stay very comfortable. They even have a nightly service to make the bed and put out slippers for the guest.
The complementary breakfast was delicious and well-presented with a good selection of pastries, juice and fruits. The coffee was as tasty as the one I had in Paris.
During my last day in Delhi, everything could go wrong went wrong. The hotel I booked was supposed to be a pretty decent one. I was warned by my co-workers that certain caution needs to be taken when booking a trip in India. However, when the driver dropped me off at the hotel lobby, I was surprised to notice a couple the homeless people running around. When I walked in the hotel, the place stinks! Guess I had to change the game plan then.
Alright, if I have to pay big bucks out of my own pocket to stay at a decent hotel, I might as well find a good one.
Blogging at the bar downstairs...
The little loundge is kind of cute.
The ruins of the fort are located on a small hill which once stood on the banks of the river Yamuna.
The structure houses a mosque which has a double storied octagonal tower. It is said that the Mughal king Humayun fell from the tower and died.
Nowadays, it's a nice dating spot for Indian locals.
The goal is to kill some time before boarding the flight to India. One of the things I can pretend to do is to work on the ppt presentation at work.
The 3-hr stop in UK is not easy to handle after a long flight. There was really that much coffee one can drink before going completely nuts with a pair of sore eyes in red.
Finally, on a hazy morning, I got to Delhi.
After 23 endless hours of flight and transit, an entire hour of standing in a line that barely moved to clear the Indian custom, another 4 hr of thrilling and yet a bit boring drive through the rural part of the northern India, I finally arrived in Agra where Taj Mahaul is. Exhausted, dying for a shower.
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