Failed plans, but a nice recovery

We had planned to visit a new temple that had just been constructed in the past few years, Akshardham, but we did not have time in the day, as we had to meet back up with Rahul’s father and sister before 5 o’clock. None of us have seen the newly constructed temple as of yet, so we were all excited to make the trip, but alas, some plans just fall through and there is not much you can do about it. So instead, we contacted Ashutosh and the four of us headed into Sarojani Nagar, a nice market with decent priced clothing. Rahul picked up a nice shirt, with help from Ashutosh and me, I bought a few tshirts and a pair of jeans for our upcoming trip to the Shimla area. We got to chat with Ashutosh a little bit before we had to head back into town.

Arriving back at the hotel a bit late due to traffic, the ever present and always enjoyable traffic of Delhi, we met Ruby and Rahul’s father. A ‘friendly’ little argument ensued in Hindi, one of which I do not know most of the content, lack of Hindi speaking and all, but it at least seemed resolved when his father left for the train. Didi, Ruby’s nickname meaning older sister, stayed behind with Sagar, her son, to travel with us until we headed to Varanasi. Didi presented me with a very nice gift, a shirt that they picked up from the market for me. It was very kind of them to do so, and I am still trying to figure out what present to get them for allowing me to stay in Varanasi—Rahul is being no help in this matter.

Didi wanted to head to an underground market to kill some time before our train left for Kalka that night. This market used to be one of the more popular and higher quality markets, but due to malls opening around the area, this has become a secondary market where lower quality goods are exchanged. For instance, a vendor was trying to sell us CK One, cologne Rahul purchased before we left Chicago, for 650 rupees, about 13 US dollars. Before purchasing this, as it seemed too good to be true, a 45 dollar bottle for only 13 bucks, we asked to smell it. Not only was it a knock off, it was a poor knock off. Anyone who has smelled CK One before would have been able to let you know it was a sad attempt at faking the cologne. At least Rahul got a decent pair of pants for 350 rupees that he had been looking for for a few days. Getting annoyed by the barrage of ‘Come look at just one shirt, please sir,’ ‘Please come into my shop, finest quality,’ and ‘I have the best clothes at best prices. Please sir,” statements, we headed out for our evening train ride. This long day would finally come to a nice long sleeper train ride end.