Grounding

From the Delhi airport, we grabbed a metered taxi at the stand and headed for our hotel. And I, the apparently not as seasoned traveler as I'd like to thnk, neglected to take down the hotel's phone number upon printing our reservation details. An hour later, way past midnight, we arrived at an unmarked guesthouse. Our cabbie had no clue where we were staying, despite his prior affirmations that he did.

So, we drove and drove, finally getting someone on the phone who got us somewhere. I'm still unsure if that hotel was the one I did in fact book. The hotel's card lists the same name, but they apparently have a number of hotels in the city. The hotel is nice and clean, any confusion aside. We are staying in Gurgaon, a suburb of Delhi that has sprung up in the past 7 years or so, and is supposed to be close to our contact's house. A rooftop terrace looks out over trees. After a serious snooze, we got up about 10 in the morning, happy to have a place to sleep, and contacted Chinky,

mother of the groom and our lifeline in Delhi. She arrived shortly after at our hotel with her driver, and buzzed our room directly across from reception. I answered her call and heard her in reception. Chinky in stereo! As it turns out, her house is only 200 meters from our hotel. Talk about spittin' distance. So Chinky had the driver return, and we walked back to the house. For our first two nights stay, while it was tough getting there, the location couldn't have been better. We spent most of the day with Chinky, her daughter Ruhi, their puppy Rushtan, cook Pushpa, and driver Ram. The cook and driver don't speak much English. But boy does Chinky. She is a riot. She led us to the market, also walking distance, to book train tickets for the Taj Mahal, and to pick up SIM cards for local cell service. And, did I mention? She fed us. Serious deliciousness. And serious Indian hospitality.