Delhi and Dubai

Well, we arrived safely in Delhi at the wee hours of the am and were pleasantly greeted by a taxi to take us to our hotel. It is a nice cocoon in the midst of filth on the streets and so on - internet cafe and a restaurant - so we will have a chance to acclimatize and get our bearings and make some plans. As usual I decided to pee before picking up baggage and we got our first reaction of a non first world place - smelly, mosquito (singular), squat toilet and no paper! Tonight we enjoyed our first meal and it was great - the same little dishes that we are used to at our favorite Indian restaurant in Calgary. We also had prime viewing of the culmination of a festival from the hotel roof. We looked down into a square that had 3 characters (bad men) about 30 feet high of painted cardboard (a full scale version of children's artwork) and lots of people in costumes, crowds packed in (men in one area of the street and women and children in another area). After some time fires were ignited under each of the bad men and firecrackers exploded and the men disintegrated. Soon the crowds disappeared. We enjoyed watching it all from our cocoon on the rooftop. This celebration is all over India - not just for our pleasure.

Dubai was a land or city of extreme heat and beautiful warm clear waters and fine sandy beaches but not terribly interesting. Tons of large malls and all of the shops that we are familiar with - La senza, esprit, etc - so much square footage for displays and beautiful tiled floors through the expansive air-conditioned shops. Being Ramadan meant no food until sundown - around 6 pm - starbucks opened at 600pm each day so no morning coffee. Quite the reverse of Ramadan at school in Calgary where we eat and the Muslim kids don't. Here we are not allowed to eat or drink in public - so we had a few snacks in our pack and a ton of water. We sneak out of clear sight of everyone and have a drink. They don't do too much this month and I can hardly blame them - no water even, from sunrise to sunset. I believe that they may have been friendlier if they were not so hungry and thirsty. Clive and I were consuming about 8 liters per day - but then we walked quite a lot. At sunset, the restaurants fill up very quickly and most of the restaurants have a wonderful Mediterranean buffet which is decimated in the first hour. They have a whole lamb, lamb stew in yogurt, grilled meats (kebabs), rices, wonderful salads with lots of wonderful ingredients, great spreads (hummous, babwgnoush/, etc and lots of fresh fruits and puddings. The flavours are certainly to our taste - from cilantro to garlic and oil.

The highlight of London was seeing the production of Les Miserables.