I did not want to jinx future events by disclosing my plans early. I flew to the US on April 8 in order to attend an interview with the US Immigration service on April 15. For details of the interview, ..... look at that day's post!
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Apr 8 - meet Ramona for lunch. Ramona lives in Delhi and we met at the Cherrepungee Resort. She and her good bud, Micheline, love to go on unusual trekking adventures. After lunch Ramona takes me to several spots which are popular with visitors to Delhi. I did not think I would buy anything but ended up getting several shirts, and a few small presents for freinds & family. The Khan Market is one the places we visit. It started out many years ago as a collection of shops that catered to the western crowd. As India's appetite grew for things that appeal to western taste, Khan Market has flourished. Ramona says Saturday morning the place is packed with half the expats in Delhi shopping here. It is only moderately crowded today, a Tuesday, with a mixture of local Indians (65%), teenage Indians (20%, love the coffee shops), foreign expats (10%) and tourists (5%). It is sufficiently crowded that parking is a challenge. Ramona finds a likely area with cars parked 2 or 3 deep and waits till a young "parking attendant" shows up (abt 10 seconds). We get out, hand the keys to the attendent, and walk off. He and his buddies will find a spot in the sea of cars, often shuffling the cars around, using the fact that they are all parked in neutral and can be pushed around. It reminds me of the small games I played as a child, where 15 or 24 small plastic tiles are arranged in a square grid on a plastic holder. The tiles can slide up, down or to the side. There is always one free opening and the trick is to slide the opening around such that the other tiles are left in place leaving a message or picture. This is just on a bigger scale.
Next stop is a government market established for artisans to sell their work directly to the public. This is good for buyers since it collects a lot of good handicrafts in one place, it allows you to bargain by playing artisan's off one another, and it's good for the artisans because there are no middlemen to skim the profits. It also makes for a more pleasant customer experience, for the artisans are not the professional, slick, huckster type sales people as found in Varanasi. It is 6PM when we've seen enough and I bid Ramona adieu, taking an auto-rickshaw back to the hotel to collect my bags and then giving the auto driver a bonus by having take me to the airport.
The flight, well, lets just say it was a long, long night with many trials along the way. I tried as much as possible to employ the techniques learned from the various books read over the past few months, maintaining a cheerful demeanor throughout. I know some of the airline employees and customs officials appreciated it, and it cost me nothing to remain calm and cheerful!
April 8 - California.
My plane left Delhi at 2AM and I arrived back at SFO at 2:30PM. Just in time for a 4PM dentist appt. Part of a crown fractured off a rear molar while eating dirt laden vegetables on the Goechela trek. I arranged the appointment a week in advance, giving myself what I thought would be some margin. My margin turned out to be marginal but sufficient. Fortunately the crown retained its seal and my dentist was able to do a bit of buffing and send me on my way again. The real repair happens in June when I have more time.
My time in the US is split between
- studying the immigration questions I will be asked during my US citizenship interview
- shopping for stuff that I will use on the remainder of my travels. Near the top of the list is what Jamie calls her, "Mother of God" duffle. It's the largest gear duffle I can find and ITS ON WHEELS! The other key item is a pair of plastic climbing boots.
- a quick trip to Portland to visit Jocelyn and wish her good luck with her final month of studies as well as visiting my good friend Gary Dunkley. Gary had not had many visitors of late and it was good both of us to connect.
- oh yes, the last thing I do while in the US is make sure all my pictures are backed up on my home machine. I won't bore you with details but the failure of my traveling laptop made it extremely painful (and time consuming) to do this backup.
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