New Travel Plan

This morning we came up with a new travel plan. At breakfast, we were talking to an Indian couple who are professionals in Delhi. They confirmed that it's a waste of time and effort to visit many of the towns in Rajasthan. In each one there is only one thing, the fort, to see and they all look pretty much the same. If you see the Amber Fort near Jaipur, and you've already seen the Red Fort in Delhi, the Agra Fort and Fatehpur Sikri, you've got it well covered. So this afternoon, after a fruitless discussion with the Air Canada rep in Delhi on a phone borrowed from our Israeli friend, we called the rep in Canada on Skype. She was excellent. For a change fee that totals $754 because we have to move up from Tango to Flex (although we'll be in the same seat), we will fly home on Tuesday, March 7th. 

That gives us lots of time to see Jaipur and also fly to Udaipur for close to a week. Those should both be fun. Then we'll fly straight back to Delhi and get on our flight home.

Kapil and Kirti, pictured with us, also gave us other travel information. They live middle class lives in south Delhi, which is a world away from the "less privileged" class in old Delhi or Pahar Ganj. We learned that the tip we gave our driver the other day was appropriate for good service and too much for bad service. They would not tip at all to a service person who complains. We also learned that we can buy a General ticket for the train, even when the best cars are supposed to be fully booked, then move into one of those cars if there are empty seats. There are no-shows all the time. So we move in, feign ignorance of the rules, pay the difference in ticket price and a small fine, and we're all set. Nevertheless, we'll go to the station on Monday and try to buy a good ticket right away, which seems safer. And we'll do the dreaded ATM excursion at the same time.

There's also a picture of our bathroom. It's an Asian type shower, which means the whole bathroom gets wet. There's also always a bucket and dipper for those who prefer to use that to save water. Many people here are used to that system.

Other pictures show the monkeys who come to eat particular flowers in the yard, Anita with a little girl she befriended and a picture of our cottage.

I'm feeling a bit better but I'm sticking with the rice, yogurt, tea and maybe I'll go nuts at dinner and have some chapati bread. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to join Anita in eating the good food here, instead of eating my rice while staring at her gorging herself from her colourful plate.

We've booked a jeep safari tour into Ranthambore National Park tomorrow morning to hopefully see some tigers. If we don't see tigers, the park itself is supposed to be quite beautiful.