Back to India

 It's just over six years since I was last in India. (Dan had a brief stopover here on the way home from Thailand once since then.) After two winters in other places, we are heading back to Chiang Mai for January and February. We decided to leave early and stop for a visit with old friends in India.

As usual, our flight arrived in Delhi in the early morning hours. After getting through immigration (a breeze with the e-visa) and gathering our luggage, we went to the prepaid taxi stand and got a ride to our hotel. We are members of the Hyatt hotel chain and were able to use points to stay at the Hyatt Centric Janakpuri Hotel, a much nicer place than we usually have stayed. We got settled in our room about 3:30 AM and grabbed a few hours of sleep.

The hotel breakfast was good. When we arrived about 8:30, there was quite a mob of people at the buffet. The host seated us in a quiet area and immediately a waiter came and offered to get us our food so we wouldn't have to fight the crowd. (Do we look that old??!! Oh well, it was very nice.) He brought us desi chai, then omelets, fruit and toast. The chai came from a cart and we went back several times for refills.

You can see the large urn with chai. In the lower left is a rack for carrying multiple cups. We saw him going from table to table offering servings. It was served in small glasses, very authentic. And delicious! When I pulled out my phone to take the picture, he thought I should be in it and he would take it, but I said no, I wanted him in it.

After breakfast Dan went out to find an ATM and get us Metro cards for riding around the city. Our hotel is right at one of the stations, very convenient. Soon we will go to a phone store and get SIMs to have a local number while we are here.