We had a little drama at the Bangkok airport before our 4.5 hour flight to Delhi. We arrived early to avoid the late afternoon/evening commute traffic and found the lounge to relax before our flight. Our plane had not been assigned a gate so we waited for our gate to appear on the video departures list. Unfortunately, it never did. Jim got up to look and didn’t think to ask the women at the counter. It’s an extension of the “never ask directions” guy thing. I felt uneasy because our flight was an hour away from leaving, so I went up to talk with her. She looked at the list and exclaimed: “Oh! Your gate has changed and you must head there immediately.” I scooped up Jim and our stuff. The gate was quite a distance away including an elevator and a tram. However, we ran into a nice Indian man and his Mom who were on our flight and he guided us on the way. We arrived at our gate about 10 minutes before boarding began.

We left Bangkok after 8 PM and it was fun watching the plane icon on the map of the world heading to places and over oceans and seas that were new to us.

Navigating customs in India was easy. In fact, because we are seniors, we didn’t even have to have our pictures taken or give our fingerprints (as we had to in Thailand). Once in the main terminal we easily connected with our Tauck Tours guide, who presented us with a Lai of daisies. We were so glad to see him because even at midnight the Delhi Airport chaos swirled around us as we were guided to where our car was waiting.

Delhi is the world’s second largest city, with over 29 million inhabitants. Only Tokyo is larger. Even in the middle of the night, the sounds of honking are constant. Our guide told us Indians navigating the roads of Delhi need 4 things: good horn, good brakes, good driver and good luck. Jim’s strong backseat driver tendencies made the journey from the airport to our hotel challenging, and he eventually just closed his eyes and meditated.

Our hotel (The Leela Palace) is in New Delhi, the federal administrative district on the south side of Delhi. New Delhi has less than 500,000 people and is much quieter. We entered the hotel gates and first had to stop to have our trunk checked for security. Security was higher than usual because later that morning in New Delhi was the big 75th Celebration of India’s Republic Day, marking the day India’s post-colonial Constitution took effect. The celebration mixes prayer and a parade focusing on military power, cultural traditions and India’s leading citizens.

By the time we were in our room and in bed it was 2:30 AM and we were very tired.

We woke up on our own the next morning and had a fantastic breakfast and watched some of the parade on TV. I immediately experimented with local foods. The Chefs loved that I was so willing to try the unusual things and wanted to bring me more. The intricate taste of the homemade Chai Tea that was served made having coffee totally unnecessary for me. Clearly breakfast was going to be our daily super meal.

The hotel staff is abundant, friendly, and very attentive. Everyone wants to converse and help us with anything we need.

After breakfast we explored the beautiful building, the art and the grounds. We found the spa, and the roof-top swimming pool (it’s delightfully warm!) and then decided to go for a swim.

Even though Delhi is the world’s second largest city, you can’t see it because the air pollution is so consistently poor, especially in the winter. We were warned about it, but it’s impossible to imagine until you’re in it. This really should be a top focus of the government here. We were told by an Austrian factory manager visiting the hotel for a weekend respite that people who live their whole lives in Delhi lose 15 years of life expectancy because of the air pollution. For a country as large and resource rich as India that is unacceptable. India is a very young country, with a very old, diverse mix of cultures, that is still recovering from centuries of colonial rule by the Mughals beginning in 1526 and then by the British (who formally took over the country from the East India Company in 1857) and then ended its colonial government in 1947.

Our first day had the worst air pollution of our visit. Visibility was less than 1 mile. After swimming 20 laps, I definitely noticed that I had difficulty breathing. Yesterday was much better because a breeze kicked up, we could see the sky and probably about 3 miles around the hotel and I could swim 30 laps without any difficulty. Today it appears that the winds have stilled again and the bad pollution is back although not as bad as the first day.

We only did one short walk outside the hotel grounds (to a nearby shopping mall), and we just aren’t moved to do much exploring on our own. Instead, we are pampering ourselves and eating wonderful food at the hotel’s three restaurants. Our first night we ate at the Japanese restaurant, last night we ate at the European restaurant and tonight our 20-person tour group will eat together at the Indian restaurant. We’ve met a few people from our tour group already and we are looking forward to meeting the rest this afternoon.

Our tour group gathers at 1:30 today and then we head out for our first group tour of Delhi, including Gandhi’s Smriti (assassination site).

We are both finishing the book, “Freedom at Midnight”, recommended to us by our dear friend Richard Wortley. The book was the used to create the script for the Oscar winning movie “Gandhi”, but has so much more information and is beautifully written. We both love reading books about the areas we are visiting while we are here; as I read I can feel the energy of the book come alive.

Well rested and well fed, today we begin our 18 day trip of India!