Wednesday - We are on the road to Northern India but first we will go to the birthplace of Krishna (and of course, OP's daughter and grandson) We visit their home down back alleys where probably 10 people live. The grandfather, or Boss, is 90 something and he latches on to Joseph and talks his ear off thinking he understands everything he is saying.( of course, he doesn't understand a word.) OP says that he is basically complaining about the ways of the modern world and how much things costs for such poor quality. Also he pines for his wife that died years ago and he wants to join her. He insists that Joseph have one of his beedies which he does. He hasn't smoked a cig in 8 years and 40 years since his last beedie. He calls for tea and then lunch. Zosia is totally left out of all this and would like to get on with the day. We stop by the most beautiful temple in the world (hari Krishna) only to find out it is closed.
We drive the rest of the day though some of the worst traffic yet and arrive at our our hotel, Fort Unchagon - a maharajah's fort converted to a hotel. The tiger trophey room had 15 stuffed tigers from 1959-61. It also had a billiards room with a table twice as long as any billiard table I have ever seen. Our room was about 24x24 feet and a 16 foot ceiling. It was also pretty cold so the came and lit our stove. Dinner and breakfast was the same as everyday -soup, mixed vegs, curried chicken, nam, other vegetables, Fried eggs, porrage, juices, toast,
Leave early Thursday but it is a long drive today 8 hours. Clean retrooms are really hard to come by, when we see one we celebrate. The men just pee "any place at all" city or country. The women need to find a tree to be proper. There sure is a lot of driving to get a short distance. Zosia and I have books on mp3 players from the library so we see all the sights with reduced noise and a good story. But we are running short on AAA batteries but that in itself will become a chore to acquire tomorrow. We had an opportunity to see TV in the last hotel and the difference between that and the reality we are experiencing have nothing in common.
Now we head to the mountains - we are in the foothills of the Himalayas and all is changed - very steep and curvy roads, very little traffic, still our driver honks at every curve, it is more than cool, it turns cold. We come to to our destination - Nainital - the mountain city 7000 feet. From here we can see the snow covered peaks of the Himalayas. The hotel is beautiful but very few guests and no internet. The birding up here is very good, just driving in yesterday, we will have five days in the montains before we return to New Dehli.