We had a blessedly late start to the day, getting on the bus
at 9:30 AM. Our destination for the day
was Sarnath, the site where Buddha first preached a sermon. It’s a pilgrimage destination for devout
Buddhists, one of seven holy cities for Buddhists in India. Much of the monastery was in ruins after
being destroyed by the Moghuls but one of the two stupas (monuments) was still
intact and there was a procession of lay Buddhists dressed in white and the
occasional monk, walking around the stupa and chanting. We made quick visits to the museum and to the
site of a giant Buddha (85 feet) built by the Thais after a comparable one
was destroyed in Afghanistan.
After the visit to Sarnath we boarded the bus to the
airport. We arrived 2 hours early but
our guide knew what he was doing- it took him forever to get us all checked in
and he had to come back and fetch the passports of those of us traveling to
Nepal rather than returning to Delhi for flights home.
We finally got boarding passes and cleared
security. The flight took off half an
hour early.
It was a good thing we had a long layover in Delhi- they had
only 3 people at the transfer desk for everyone on the plane making
international connections. Finally we
cleared THAT hurdle, went through Security in the International terminal, and
were routed through multiple Duty-Free and other retail shops on the way to our
gate. Mary Beth and I chose an Irish pub
for dinner although she had a falafel sandwich and I had grilled paneer with
mushrooms. We both enjoyed a bottle of
Kingfisher.
Getting from the plane to our hotel was not the best part of
the trip. First, several of us found
that the professional visa service the tour company recommended hadn’t noticed
that the Consulate failed to add a stamp to the piece of paper they’d posted in
our passports. (The same thing happened
to a couple who had gotten theirs directly from the Consulate in Chicago.) It was only a few minutes’ delay but a little
anxiety-provoking. The immigration agent
seemed to think that we should have realized the visa was missing an official
stamp. The trip to the hotel, which
started around midnight after we’d all gotten processed, was over some
genuinely awful roads- partly recovering from the last earthquake, partly
widening and repaving work. We finally arrived at the hotel, which was a
resort in a beautiful setting, and when my bag got delivered to my room I saw
that the “security” people at the airport had used a plastic zip tie to fasten
the two zippers in my bag together. Not
being in possession of anything sharp and pointy, I had to drag my bag to
reception and borrow a pair of scissors before I could retire for the night.
It took me awhile to get to sleep so it was a short night,
but a much better day. The resort was
even more beautiful in the daylight.
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