A mere thirty or so hours in airplanes and ports, and I made it to Delhi! I flew on one of those giant double-decker planes from Paris to Delhi, and got to sit on what I previously thought was the "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" floor; I'd pretty much always seen the top floors on those huge planes as where they served dinner with crystal and where flight attendants doubled as masseuses. Nope- but it was a far sight better on that Air France flight than the Delta one that I took from Atlanta to Paris. The stewardess (you heard me, I'm not giving her 'flight attendant' props) that was basically relegated to the area of the plane where I sat was pretty much the nastiest stewardess, nay, person, I've ever encountered in any service industry. She was this little spitfire of a dark skinned thing with a sharp accent and a sharper tongue. It actually became comical after a point. For instance, I asked her what there was to drink, and she gave me this wide-eyed, hateful look, and I sort of shriveled, saying "I'll just have a coke."  She was barking at everyone. Good times.

So those were the flights . I waited over an hour to get my bag in Delhi- pretty sure they only had like one small child unloading all the bags on the plane- and missed Kunal. Not having my phone powered up to be able to call him, I just got a prepaid taxi and headed to Paharganj. After getting hit on the whole way in to town by a fairly brazen driver, I got to my hotel; the kid behind the desk lit up with a big smile and gave me my key. Recognized me from last time and was expecting me. Really cute. I didn't have to check in or anything, he was like, "Tomorrow. You sleep."  So headed upstairs to a room I'm pretty sure I stayed in last time. Pink and yellow walls, bed, fan, TV, and a closet that doubled as a toilet, shower, and sink. Yep, I'm in Delhi. Aside from nearly electrocuting myself when trying to find an additional outlet while I was dripping wet (and there was water on the floor- S-M-R-T) everything has been safe and wonderful. Serious current, though, I'll tell you. Oh yeah, electricity stuff here isn't like "grounded". Or up to "code" . ..Right.

It was lovely, the next morning, meeting Kunal and then trotting around to all the places where I recognized friends and was recognized- really cool. Everyone said, "Oh, I heard you were coming back!" and greeted me with giant smiles and warm handshakes or sort of half hugs (they are mostly men, or boys, after all. Not proper for full hugs). It's great to get out of the cab, have a feeling of where I'm headed, jet down a filthy urine and garbage-strewn twisting alley in the pitch black smog and see the sign of the hotel that I know I have a reservation at. It's really fun to be back. I feel a little like a long lost sister or some kind of celebrity or something, everyone either knows me or knows who I am and who my friends are here. I am very well looked after, that's for sure. I spent yesterday fighting to stay awake- finally had to nap around 4:00, then went for a white-knuckle ride through downtown Delhi traffic in the dark on the back of a motorcycle. Q: What's more adrenaline-producing than riding on the back of a big motorcycle in the dark in downtown and highway Delhi traffic? A: Nothing . It was fun though, went to a market looking for a new sweatshirt and didn't find anything, but the ride was a kick. Went out for dinner, ordered too much food, and gave leftovers to some dogs on the way home when I didn't come across any people. They were a little upset that there wasn't any meat, but sweet dogs anyway, and they liked the fried rice.

There's been constant coverage of the Mumbai incident on the TV in my room, which I've watched pretty much solidly whenever in there since my arrival. The funny thing, if there is one about it, is that every single station is covering it, and whether it's in Hindi or English, the huge tag line "BREAKING NEWS" is always at the bottom of the screen- even if they are showing footage from days ago and discussing it among the news staff or whatever political movers and shakers or pundits they are interviewing. Took me off guard a couple times until I realized that it was just going to be "BREAKING NEWS" all the time, for everything . The incident is over, there's some blame game stuff going on... American based CNN is the only news source tying it to Al Quaeda. Otherwise, the Indian news is saying that they might be Palestinian nationals; Palestine is saying that they are in no way responsible or tied to the event(s); overall, I think the feeling is that everyone's sorry, and security seems to have taken a bump up, which is good. Tensions are still pretty high and I am certainly going to avoid Mumbai. But I feel fine here- things are chill- and I'm headed further west tomorrow morning to the very benign state of Rajasthan for a few days.

With that, I'm going to look up the place that this German woman, who is sleeping with one of Kunal's friends (DRAMARAMA around here.. I'll tell you more when I write about the wedding, later...It's pretty funny, sort of) recommended in Pushkar, which is where I'm headed at 6:00 tomorrow morning. I'll spend three days there, then I want to be back here on the 4th- there is the women's party for the wedding that I've been invited to (I have a very beautiful invitation that I can not read at all, except for my name) on the evening of the 4th, the wedding is the 6th, and then I figure I should be on a train headed to Varanasi and then south on the 7th or 8th . A little zig zagging through central India, most likely, by train. That's my itinerary so far. I'm pretty stoked to be going to a Hindu wedding- my last one was a Sikh ceremony in Amritsar.

Oh! Came across a beautiful little Tibetan temple while on the motorcycle cruise last night. The man looked at me and said, "room?" so I think you can book a room there. Really cool and peaceful Buddhist temple and monastery right in the middle of some highways near where we went to the night market; I might check it out one of the times I have to come back here. I bet I could stay there and go to some meditations or something. Pretty cool. I still haven't completely given up on the idea of heading to Dharamsala either; I might do that before I go to Varanasi. We'll see. For now; train to Ajmer, bus to Pushkar, two nights, come back to Delhi for some wedding festivities.

Alrighty, then, going to drink my eightieth cup of tea for the day, and maybe find some food. Man, I've missed this tea and food.

By the way, crazy, I know, but my USB thingie is not working on this computer from my camera. I'll make a disk after I take more photos and then upload... I'll put together a disk from Kunal's machine at some point tonight, maybe. Free and easy. This is why I bought a stack of CDs to take with me this time... Live and learn.

Namaste!

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