August 18 – A “five hour” trip to back to Delhi – well more like 7

On Thursday morning we awoke to rain and, fearing another insane drive if the roads washed out again, we decided to head back (one day early) towards Delhi.. Mintu was ready and off we went making a side detour to the holy city of  Haridwar.

Haridwar was the site of the large Kumbh Mela festival in 2010. Kumbh Mela is a mass Hindu pilgrimage in which Hindus gather at the Ganges river.

From Wikipedia:  

The normal Kumbh Mela is celebrated every 3 years, the Ardh (half) Kumbh Mela is celebrated every six years at Haridwar and Prayag, the Purna (complete) Kumbh takes place every twelve years, at four places (Prayag, Haridwar, Ujjain, and Nashik). The Maha (great) Kumbh Mela which comes after 12 'Purna Kumbh Melas', or 144 years, is held at Allahabad. The last Ardh Kumbh Mela was held over a period of 45 days beginning in January 2010, more than 70 million Hindu pilgrims took part in the Ardh Kumbh Mela at Haridwar, and on January 15, the most auspicious day of the festival of Makar Sankranti, more than 5 million participated. The Maha Kumbh Mela, held in 2001, was attended by around 60 million people, making it at the time the largest gathering anywhere in the world in recorded history.

Since we left a day early from Rishikesh we didn’t have a place to stay in Delhi on Thursday night.  Luckily, my wonderful friend Shafi came to our rescue invited us to stay overnight there.

When we arrived at Shafi's gorgeous home at about 6:30pm, her two sons, Saurin and Sachin, were fabulous hosts (Shafi was at Parent's Night at Saurin's school). We had a delicious pasta dinner and great conversation, even singing together a jingle we all knew from the British sitcom "IT Crowd." We were fast friends after that! 

Our plan was to leave the following day (Friday) to Rajastan (again, a day early) so that we could see more of the sites, however, Keith’s stomach had other plans! He was so ill overnight that I thought we’d have to find a doctor in the morning. Shafi, again, came to the rescue, and with good food and the right medicine we were able to push off by 12:30 in the afternoon.

Next: The palace in Jaipur where we are staying Friday and Saturday nights.