Greencaviar Travel

A City of Contrast Our attempt to venture out on our own the first couple of days had proved fruitless. The following day, my sister and I joined our organized tour group. We had a full day visiting the tourist sites. Our first stop was the Raj Ghat, Mahatma Gandhi’s cremation site, marked by a black marble memorial platform with an eternal flame. Green and expansive gardens surrounded the memorial area. It felt as if we were so far away from the normal hustle and bustle of the city. Besides, we were the first group of tourists there. There were few local visitors: schoolchildren, women covered in black from head to toe, and men in white garb paying respect to the “Father of the Nation". Next, we visited the Old Delhi, the walled city of Delhi. It was a total contrast to the peace and quiet of the expansive Raj Ghat. The streets were overcrowded and teeming with commerce where you’d find vendors selling wares of all kinds - from metals, fruits and vegetables to...

  Introduction While having breakfast in the hotel restaurant in New Delhi, I noticed two women shooting glances at my plate and started to smile. I realized they were looking at the stack of fruits on my plate and fascinated by how much I could eat of the round brown fruit. We invited them to join us at our table. One of the women said, “Chico”. I knew what that fruit was called because I had it before in the Philippines and Thailand. The women introduced themselves as doctors from Goa and were staying at the hotel while attending a medical conference in New Delhi. I told them that I was a bit familiar with ‘Indian sweets’ because I worked with software engineers and managed a group of programmers from India. When I mentioned that it was our second day at the hotel and that we wasted our first day waiting for the maintenance people or “engineers” (as called by the hotel manager) to fix the water and air-conditioning issue, the topic of conversation changed fro...