So this afternoon, while I recovered from the Big Wander, I spent a few hours in the hotel catching up on emails and doing a bit of work. I had a ton of stuff to deal with from my office, and by then it was almost 6 and the guys were going to pick me up at 7. So I got ready and then I couldn't help myself so I took a quick half hour nap, and went down to meet them.
Only one guy could make it, because the other had a family emergency, so he wasn't there, but my guy seemed excited to take me around. It's remarkable how accomodating they've been; I'm sure part of it is because my company is employing them, but part of it is that they're just genuinely really nice. He offered to drive me around on his motorcycle, but I seriously don't think I could have handled that -- not having been on a motorcycle, like, EVER, I really didn't want to start here. I'd be terribly liable to shriek in his ear and throw him off his stride, and then we'd all be dead. So he got us into an autorickshaw, which is basically like a car with three wheels, one in the front and two in the back. There aren't any doors, either, so most of the time I could have reached out and touched any of the millions of people we were zooming past.
The ride lasted about 20 minutes, and I think came to about 6 rupees, if I was reading the meter properly, which is maybe fifteen cents. New York taxis could learn a thing or two. At the end, we were at a long street that gets closed off to car traffic on the weekends, so it's more of a pedestrian mall. We popped in and out of a few places, I bought a couple things (heh heh heh), and I learned that "pedestrian traffic" also can include "people on camels."
Yes. Camels. A family got together, took their camel out of the garage, and rode it. To the mall.
A block away from the camels? A herd of cows. Just trotting along.
After an hour or so of this, we decided to get some dinner, so my coworker called around to his friends for suggestions while I had a coffee. I had to keep saying that yes, I could handle spicy food, and eventually we took another autorickshaw to a restaurant that actually I had walked past earlier in the day, so I totally knew where I was and everything. Across the street from the college! Where the old ladies tried to paint me!
The restaurant is called HORN OK PLEASE, which is also a big logo painted on the back of all of the buses and trucks, which apparently is a reminder to smaller cars to honk when they pass. Not that any of them need a reminder; people are VERY liberal with the horn-honking here. Inside it's decorated with a lot of truck tires and stuff, -- I think it's really funny that I ended up at the Indian equivalent of a theme restaurant.
The cuisine was, I'm told, Punjabi, from the north of India, which I was also informed means it's heavy with lots of gravies and sauces. TOTALLY my kind of meal! We had a spicy green pea soup, and a plate of spicy vegetable appetizers, basically cooked up and rolled in some spicy sauce, with an herb-yogurt sauce to dip in. Then we had two main dishes, one of which was a curry with cashews, and the other a mix of vegetables like peppers and peas in some spicy red sauce, and a big pile of buttered naan. I think he was impressed that I know what naan is. (laugh) He did all the ordering, as the menu didn't come with descriptions, and I kept encouraging him to get whatever he thought would be good. I went through two liters of bottled water, but MAN it was good. I hope I proved I can handle having lunch with them for the rest of the week. He was really glad to eat there too; he considers himself a foodie. We also found out that he started on this project in India on the exact same day that I started working on it in New York! We're totes twinsies.
After that we walked back to the hotel (I knew how to get here!!!), purchases in tow, and shortly I will be packing up my stuff in preparation for the big move to the new hotel in the morning.
WOO!
Also? MAN I AM SO FULL.