Wednesday: Haldiram’s! My co-worker looked at me and said “Haldiram.” I said, “What?” He said, “Haldiram.” I said, “I have no idea what that is.” He said, “That’s okay.” A little while later, the team went down to lunch, but instead of the elevator stopping at the cafeteria floor, everyone got off at the parking lot. I thought it was a mistake at first. But not at all! We were spontaneously going to Haldiram’s! Haldiram’s turned out to be a popular order-at-the-counter style restaurant (with a fair number of little homeless kids outside, though, which made me sad.)

A co-worker calls this chain, “street food style, but hygienic”
He knows what’s important to me

The place was busy. You could order a variety of traditional North Indian, South Indian, Chinese, and snacks. I had something called a Tandoori Platter which was pretty good, but their specialty is “chole bhature” which I’ll translate as “poofy fried bread with spicy garbanzo bean sauce”. My co-workers called the Haldiram’s chain the best, cheapest lunch around, at a couple bucks (the cafeteria food for a buck at work doesn’t count I guess.) Glad I didn’t bring my lunch today!

Thursday: Restaurant Week! Who knew, they have Restaurant Week in Delhi! I perused the restaurants. The Indian food ones were the most popular. I settled on a European style one called “Tres” due to the variety of food offered on their set menu. And, yum. Best Meal So Far. Finally, a chance to have meat other than chicken or mutton, which are your only meat options at the average “non-veg” restaurant here. I swear that was the best chorizo I’ve ever had. And wow, did I miss red wine. And, everything was so CLEAN including the restrooms. You would never, ever be able to tell from the outside that this was a high-end kind of place (though apparently it was in a high-end neighborhood; couldn’t tell in the dark), so yay for Restaurant Week.

The cost? Almost precisely the same as Denver Restaurant Week. About $25 a head. Hmm. Getting there? This was the hard part. I thought I did an excellent job giving early notice and clear, detailed instructions to our normal cab guy. But my confidence was shattered when the driver showed up at 6:30am to my place for no reason at all. (Unless he was mixing up 6:30am and 6:30pm, but what restaurant serves dinner at 6:30am? Except Denny’s. No Denny’s here.) Pretty sure he didn’t understand and unable to explain it any clearer, I also booked Easy Cabs, then made the mistake of reading Easy Cabs reviews in which I heard all the sob stories about them never showing up. But it all turned out fine. Everyone showed up when they were supposed to (I didn’t cancel our normal cab until the last minute just in case; they ended up both arriving at the same time. No idea where our normal driver thought he was taking us since the owner never confirmed anything. Felt a little guilty for the last minute cancelling, but not terribly much so.)

Friday: Cabana Cocktail party! On Thursday, an envelope was left in our rooms with an invitation in it. Our hotel was throwing a PR party. We walked over. In typical Indian hosting-hundreds-of-people fashion, there was a buffet that did not open until 9pm, lots of covered tables and chairs, and a dance floor. The free alcohol was an unusual draw and it became increasingly popular mainly with the men over the course of the evening. The DJ was blasting the music. And, like the Ring Ceremony I had been to a couple months back, the guys and gals alike danced their hearts out, moving sometimes in unison and often lip-synching the lyrics. The hosts seemed to periodically be giving out random wrapped gifts to the Best Dancer or something, but we were not really paying attention. We all got pulled up to dance later, which actually was kind of fun even though I didn’t know any of the music (except, again, Gangnam Style.) Problem with dancing: there is no one to hold my purse.

Anyway, so a little while later, the two friendly ladies pulled us up, yet again, to dance. This time, after only a few minutes, I heard over the loudspeaker, “And the winner goes to the lady with the brown hair!” They repeated it. I had this feeling they meant me, even though I would have described myself as the only woman in the room WITHOUT brown hair. Yep, they did. I guess they wanted to give the foreign lady a prize (and photograph it) really badly, because I certainly wasn’t doing any fancy dances in my sneakers while holding my purse. After that, a less creepy older guy followed by a more creepy younger guy starting dancing with me (I was still awkwardly holding the present). The younger got a phone call (and cell phones rule here) so I took the opportunity to escape back to the others.

I opened the present next day and to my surprise: random art! And I like it. The colors are lovely. I may even keep it.

This’ll really pull the room together…

Saturday: Road trip! I joined a group called “Delhi Road Trips” on an ex-pat site. They decided to have an introductory lunch meeting in a little town called Karnal a couple hours north. The guys organizing it were awesome and even got me a lift from my place! The retired major and his wife totally took me under their wing. At any rate, the six of us plus driver had a stimulating conversion as we headed to a new state: Haryana. (That makes four states, five including Delhi, I’ve managed to see so far.) We talked about whether marriage makes one happier and about whether destiny was pre-determined. Big stuff for people who had mostly just met. The place we were headed called “Haveli” was unexpectedly closed due to either a kitchen fire or a labor strike, depending on who we asked, but we hung around for a while to wait for the others in our group to show (we were super early – all being punctual-type people.)

Multiple Marriage Lawns… but only One Luxurious Room:
A Unique Theme Resort Indeed!

So, we got some snacks to hold us over and hung around and took photographs. This resort was in the middle of nowhere, but pretty fun, even closed. In fact, it is a chain, and we passed a smaller “Haveli” on the way up. We took photos and sat, chatting and to my utterly huge unbelievable excitement, starting to plan a Leh trip! Earlier, I discovered another person in the group shared my passion for this crazy Himalayas road trip idea to the north. Amazingly, they seem keen on planning as well! Serendipitously wonderful!

(Getting in my monkey – and monkeying around – quota for the post)

Probably the most fun part of the Saturday road trip, besides the great conversation with a very cool group of folks, was the palm reader. All the ladies (and one of the gentlemen) took a turn. The reader himself, who had his booth stacked with palmistry books, asked for my name and age and then looked at my left hand and told me a lot of things while another person translated for me. He was surprisingly accurate about my relationship issues.

The group of us getting our fortunes told

No one else – out of the seventeen people who said they intended to come – showed up, but we enjoyed the small group atmosphere. We headed back to the first Haveli (quite hungry at that point) and two others had just arrived, coincidentally, thinking that this was the Haveli we were meeting at. Lunch was good. Had too much lassi, but not a bad thing. I’m having as much lassi and chai as I can possibly have while in India. (Side note: a few different people have been surprised that I know what “chai” is… they don’t realize that their local tea has spread all over the world.) The waiters all wore little vests and genie pointed shoes, it was cute. We took some photos there as well and I had a kulfi for the first time, which was a milky ice cream bar that tasted like cardamom (a spice I only know because it is a setting on our work tea machine). Not bad. I’ve heard advice to avoid dairy / ice cream in India. Yeah, not happening.

Delhi Road Trip Group!
(some of us at least)

Also… I’m thinking about moving to Orange County.

(totally stole this image)

The apartment high-rise complex across the street (called Orange County, seriously) has three-bedroom furnished apartments (including a sauna, gym, and pool building) for a little over half the price I’m paying now. I checked out a few rooms. First one was so dirty, I almost didn’t look again. Next one they showed me was better. Then they showed me the adorably furnished one (with art and a purple wall in the side bedroom). Yep, they know what they’re doing. Gotta decide if it is worth the security deposit, agent commission, and all the other hassle / extra expense of having an apartment.