Christmas in India

Priya's mehndi applier came over and applied mehndi to V and my hands, also my feet and upper arm. The process took about 1 1/2 per person (45 minutes per hand) and after it dried, we applied a sticky mix of lemon juice and sugar to the mehndi to bring out the color. The mehndi smelled like the cloves that were added to the base, though after it dried, it left our hands smelling of something was rotting. In order to allow the color to develop as much as possibe, we were told to sleep with the crusty mehndi dried on our hands. It was difficult to do anything because it flaked off. We woke up with the bed covered in dirt. But the results were worth it all:

So after my day in bed, Lalit purchased Vidhu and I tickets to fly to Delhi. Being the host-with-the-most, he generously paid for them himself, much to our horror. The tickets were cheap by American standards (50 bucks one way for a three hour flight) yet nevertheless, extremely gracious. We flew with Kingfisher Airlines, one of the nicest airlines I've flown. They handed out Kingfisher Stewardess barbies to all the little girls on the plane (Christmas present since we flew on Christmas day) I was really jealous. One funny note, here, the passport has the same status as a driver's license does in the US. We have to show it to get SIM cards for our cell phone, we need our passports to check in to hotels. We need our passports to purchase train tickets. Yet we went through the entire airport experience without showing our passports ONCE. How funny is that?

Once in Delhi, we checked in to a guest house in the heart of New Delhi, which is owned by a distant relative of V. The hotel is located in New Delhi, in the heart of the shopping district. The first thing we noticed about Delhi is that it is less crowded and much older than Mumbai...also a lot colder, as it is located in the middle of the country, away from the coastline. We got a lot more attention in Delhi, and the train station there is chaotic and confusing.

This is a picture from the rooftop of the Preem Sagar Guesthouse where we stayed in Delhi.