I slept 7 hours last night without interruption. Pretty sure that’s the first time that happened on this trip. I have slept 7 or 8 hours before, but always up at least once.

We went out for our walk and back to the hotel restaurant for breakfast when it opened at 6:30am.

We talked through our day. Ash suggested several final site-seeing ideas but I vetoed all of them.

Sometimes I’m done before the trip is; this was one of those times. I felt it as soon as I woke up: I’m ready to go home.

Of all the shopping we had done, we hadn’t accomplished this one particular task Ash had identified long before we left: to get some personal care products of a particular brand he likes for our San Francisco guest house, that are a fraction of the cost here vs. back home.

After a lazy morning and doing most of the packing, we set out in search of that and made some other stops along the way.

We finally made it to the neighborhood where we thought the shop was about Noon. As soon as we turned the corner Ash said “this is the Real India.”

It did remind me a bit of an Indiana Jones movie. We had seen similar in Agra and maybe some yesterday, although much of yesterday seemed like the deep poverty end. This seemed somehow normal – like just a regular neighborhood where people live, shop, and make a living. But we didn’t have people pushing things to buy at us like we had I some of the other markets.

It was about a 15 minute walk through that area to our destination: Himalayan Wellness Company.

It’s a small shop. We bought a bunch of stuff, spent like $80. Would have cost $500-600 at home. (Available at Whole Foods!)

We called for an Uber to get back to the hotel after several tuk-tuk rides already.

And were greeted by a cow hauling a trailer on our way to meet the car.

Our haul from that stop before packing it.

We had lunch in the hotel restaurant.

BBQ chicken pizza for Ash. But still very Indian. The chicken tasted like tandoori. But it was good.

Fish and chips for me. The fish and tartar sauce was excellent. So was the coleslaw which I’d already eaten.

We went back to our room for the final bit of packing. We rested a bit then checked out, and made our way to our 4pm appointment for a shave and a facial.

I didn’t realize Ash had them take these until a few moment ago!

This is what I reached for his phone for and discovered the others.

It is now 5:30pm and we are killing time in the hotel lounge. The earliest they will let us check our bags for our 11:30pm flight is like 7 or 7:30. But we had to check out of the hotel by 4pm so we wait.

If all goes well, our 16 hour flight gets us to NYC about 6am Friday. Then about a 4 hour layover and scheduled to land about 2pm in San Francisco. It’s wild how we get home in less than a day when it took almost 3 to get to Bhutan! Time differences are a trip and this trip was the most I’ve had: 13 hours in Bhutan, 12.5 hours here. My biggest difference before was 10 hours – Istanbul, Helsinki, and I think Johannesburg.

So that’s the plan. I’ll think a bit about how I want to close this out and finish it in one of the lounges either in Delhi or NYC.

———

It’s 7:55pm. We got to the airport a little before 7pm and everything went pretty smoothly, getting to the lounge about 7:40. Our upgrade to business got us the lounge access for free so we will have dinner here so we can just sleep on the plane.

We booked 45 minute foot and calf massages for $25 each. Now we are getting a bite to eat and will board in about an hour.

Final Thoughts

It’s tradition after all. Where to start?

I already did this for Bhutan so this will just address the last 4 days in Delhi.

Ash was really worried about my reaction to Delhi because of the “sea of humanity” that I would experience on levels I hadn’t before. He said earlier he was surprised I was so unbothered by it all. Maybe because he had prepared me so well? It’s been a lot to be sure, but I never felt unsafe like I did in Maputo, Mozambique last summer.

For me it was more of a “this is why I travel” experience – getting exposed to how other cultures function.

In some ways the most fascinating part was the traffic. Some traffic lights which seemed more like guidelines. Lots of roundabouts. Cars, trucks, tuk-tuks, scooters, motorcycles, everything all at once going in all directions and between lanes. This odd dynamic of turning 3 lanes into 4 or 5. Turning from whatever lane you want. A random cow or camel here and there. No protections for pedestrians: cross walks mean nothing, just walk into the road and start navigating around whatever is coming at you. Lots of horn honking, although not quite on the scale of Lima, Peru. Like Ash says, organized chaos. Yet I never saw an accident or anyone get hurt, somehow it all seems to work. That said, I was glad I wasn’t driving and wouldn’t ever!

If I was surprised by anything it was how beautiful the area we stayed in was. I wasn’t expecting the green, the parks, the fountains, some beautiful buildings. I don’t know why. I just always had this impression of crowded dessert but this was far from that. Ash even said he enjoyed Delhi more than usual – he actually doesn’t like it and prefers the mountains – and credited where we stayed with his improved experience.

I will definitely come back to India but wouldn’t need to come back to Delhi other than the airport probably. I told Ash next time I will be happy to go to the mountains with him. For reasons I can’t explain it was important to me to experience this first.

And then of course there was the Taj Mahal. I expected it to be amazing but wasn’t prepared for just how so it was. The history was interesting and it was fun to learn about all of that. I remember learning about it when I was a kid and thinking: that would be amazing to see, but I can’t imagine that I ever will. But here we are. 

And that is kind of how my life has gone. Ash and I say at least once a day how grateful we are to be so blessed and live the amazing life we live and do the incredible things we do.

And we always love that you come along! Next up: a Rhine River cruise from Basel to Cologne capped by a few days in London, late September.

We hope to see you then!