Resting up...

After the whirlwind that I last reported, Erin and I decided to try to stay at our hotel, The Connaught, for one more night while figuring out what to do next with the 4 days left before leaving for Europe. We went to the desk and argued with the manager to let us stay one more night, but he wouldn't budge despite our offers of baksheesh (bribes) to stay. Funny really, because we hated the hotel, the managers, the room, the restaurant, the neighborhood, really everything about it.

Upon learning that we would need to find another hotel, we went to the travel agent to try to figure out what we could possibly do within a few hours of Delhi for the weekend. Our dream would have been a flight to a tropical beach and stay in a cheap, but luxurious hotel. Surprisingly, there weren't very many options. The best option we found was to take a train then a taxi for a total of about 9 hours to a town called Khuarjato for a stay in a hotel that looked like a nice holiday inn, but had a lot of interesting temples with Karma Sutra carvings. Since we couldn't leave until Friday (this is Thursday), we decided to book a room at a pretty nice hotel in Delhi, the Claridges. We had high hopes for the Claridges and thought that at a minumum we could spend the night before embarking on a nine hour journey.

When we opened the door to our room we were nothing short of blown away. Instead of small, dingy rooms, threadbare carpets, hard beds, rotting bathrooms, formerly white (now grey) towels found in most hotels, we were greeted with pure luxury. A big, clean room with a sitting area, down comforter, beautiful bathroom, soft pillows and soft robes in the closet. Heaven! We sat down to take a nap and watch a movie on HBO at about 2pm and finally emerged for breakfast this morning at 9am! I actually slept from about 7pm to 7am without really stirring!! Our first stop before breakfast was the check-in counter where we asked to extend our stay for two more nights eliminating any plans to go on a nine hour journey. We are relieved and excited that they will allow us to stay another two nights. After all the adventures the past few weeks, a good modern hotel is exactly what the doctor ordered. It's more expensive than other options, but worth every last cent.

We are going to waste away the next few days shopping, dining, exploring, sleeping and seeing movies. We have already seen Ocean's Twelve and the remaining English language movies in town include The Incredibles, Bridget Jones and Shark Tales...I'm sure we'll see them all. Beyond that, I have no idea what we will do.

We leave Delhi on Sunday night (Monday morning) at about 2am and head for London. After a couple of days in London we take the train to Paris on the 22nd where we will spend Christmas. Hopefully there will be more updates before then, but you never know, I might go for another nap this afternoon and not wake up until Sunday...

Ted and Erin