We are now in Delhi at Lutyens bungalow guesthouse and it is already above 30 degrees Celsius at 8 am in the morning. It turned out that both the Campbells and the Petersson/Thedes where recommended this same place, in the biggest city on earth, from different autonomous people (thanks Nidhi!). Crazy coincidence!
We are checking out the pool area for the afternoon.The greenery and flowers along with the heat reminds Joanna of Tanzania where she lived as a child with her family.After breakfast, we are off to find a pharmacy for Tony. On the first crossroad, there was some kind of monument with the three monkeys holding their ears, their eyes and their mouth. Tony says there are now four monkeys.
When we arrived at Khan market, it was closed. A very eager autorikshaw-driver took us to an open pharmacy near-by.
Here we blended in perfectly (not!) with the locals.The pharmacy had everything…… even a small shrine…… with Lakshmi and Ganesha, the Hindu god with the elephant head. Lakshmi is the goddess of wealth, good fortune, happiness, youth, and beauty. She is the wife of Vishnu, the god that sustains the universe.Then our excellent rikshaw-driver and guide for the morning took us to a fantastic textile shop where they also made hand-made tailored clothes. Tony got really excited and ordered a pair of shorts and two shirts while Joanna ordered one blouse out of the material above.Then the great sales-man dressed Tony up in an Indian costume with a caftane and a vest which fitted him perfectly. Those trousers and the caftane were immediately bought too.After a nice lunch, also at the suggestion of the rikshaw-driver, we went to a tailor that Emily and Ned was at ordering their clothes. He proudly told us that everything in the shop – except for the fabric – was recycled, including the handles to the door.There was a wooden carved painting above a lot of fabrics…… and an old window.The tailor also had a shrine above the electrical outlets. Then we had a heated walk to the nearest post office…… where they had six big fans in the ceiling. Still it was so hot that it felt like 45 degrees Celsius.On the way with the cab with AC, we saw a lot of wall paintings of which this was one of the least elaborate ones.Afternoon and Emily relaxes for a moment, Ned reports for……pool duty!After pool duty, finger wrapped in a plastic bag, Tony got a chance to re-dress the wounded index finger with the newly acquired pharmacy-stuff. It seemed to have closed up nicely thanks to the stitches!After all the hard work in the pool, off again for a short excursion and some coffee with old friends from the past 3 weeks. Notice the synchronized posing! Nice tree with both white and pink flowers of Bouganvilleas. Reminds of the combined Rose/Hawthorne in our garden at home.In the late afternoon, we met up with Nidhi and Abhishek at a really nice café across the Nature Morte Gallery in Chhattapur. It was really nice to meet up again, and it felt like a week ago already although it had only been a day since we last saw each other.
