Last day in India

It's finally here... tomorrow morning we leave - Matt and I to Dubai and Mom to London. I can't believe it.

First the good news is that yesterday Hector got a little brother... you'll have to wait until we get home to see what he looks like because of course he is wrapped heavily in bubble wrap, etc, but the story of his purchase is very entertaining. We were driving out of Jaipur and passed a guy with wooden statues outside - particularly the ones we have been looking at this whole time which are wooden Ganeshas (although Matt has been very picky and hadn't seen one yet that really appealed to him). We stopped to have a look and the guy had some of the best ones we had seen but they were extraordinarily overpriced. The guy was asking 15,000 rupees for the one we were interested in (Matt lined them all up on the counter and then gradually eliminated one at a time until he was down to the one he wanted - that process in itself took 20 minutes at least!) and we weren't interested in paying that much at all. So we bargained the guy down to about 8,000 rupees, and then decided to get in the car and leave. We start driving out of Jaipur, and then the driver's cell phone rings - he answers it and its the guy from the store offering us the Ganesha for 6000 rs. Apparently, while the one guy was bargaining in the store with us, the other guy went out and got Manu's phone number - its a scheme they pull all the time with tourists who have drivers. Matt countered with 5,750 and the guys hopped on their motorcycle and drove out to the side of the road where we had pulled over to make the exchange. Definitely the craziest bargaining story we have ever been a part of.

We spent our last day in Delhi racing around trying to see/buy all the things we hadn't been able to see/buy yet - fortanetly the price we paid for a driver at the beginning of our trip included these last couple of days so we had a car to get everywhere we wanted to (although not our driver Manu from our trip, he was sadly reassigned).

We started this morning with breakfast at our hotel - fried indian bread and a potato curry sauce to dip it in - delicious delicious. We are staying in the same hotel we stayed in at the beginning of the trip but with much more appreciation this time around, after having experienced alternate accomodations that weren't quite as nice.

Afterwards we hit a couple of shops for some errands and then hopped in the car and headed out to the Lotus temple. Sadly it was closed (many things are closed on Mondays here) so we could only see it from the outside, but its quite an interesting building. Then we headed back to Dilli Haat, the cute closed off indoor market we enjoyed so much the last time we were there. Matt finally got his rug from India... Afterwards we had one final trip to my favourite department store, Fab India - this time we went to the location that someone had told us was the largest one in Delhi and it was fantastic... rack after rack, and even Matt found some shirts he liked.

After we finished we headed to Mom's friend Arun's house where we had dinner with him, his wife Gita, and their son Himanchu. In an attempt to make us feel comfortable they ordered Dominoes Pizza for dinner and we didn't have the heart to tell them that the last thing we wanted to eat for our last dinner in India was Dominoes. Fortanetly, it was a different, spicey kind of pizza which they served with some homemade vegetable biriyani and some delicious chutney sauce so it ended up being a pretty delicious meal.

While we were waiting for the pizza to arrive we looked at Himanchu's wedding album and in the process heard all about his match with his wife - it was fascinating. He's quite short, which apparently was an impediment to his marriage. Arun explained to us that these days, love marriages are acceptable as options, but since Himanchu couldn't find himself a woman on his own his parents stepped in. To find him a wife they put the word out with their relatives, and they also took out on ad in the newspaper (in the marital section) listing his occupation, salary, height, complexion (Himanchu is fair for an Indian, which is a plus), and his astrological sign. They ended up finding his wife through relatives in Varanasi, but we were astounded by the newspaper ad - Arun said there were many responses but many of them didn't work out. Himanchu and his wife were engaged for a year but never met in person before the wedding, although they spoke on the phone regularly throughout the year.

Now we are back in our hotel room packing for tomorrow - we had to buy an extra bag to fit everything we bought, so Matt found a cricket bag (designed to hold bats and wickets - read HUGE) and its pretty full... most of it is presents... I hope!

I'll try to write from Dubai too... all for now.