{"id":1478,"date":"2023-11-05T06:21:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-05T06:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/?p=1478"},"modified":"2024-12-09T04:08:43","modified_gmt":"2024-12-09T04:08:43","slug":"driving-to-delhi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/2023\/11\/05\/driving-to-delhi\/","title":{"rendered":"Driving to Delhi"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Activity level: \ud83c\udf36\ufe0f<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Modes of transportation: \ud83d\ude97 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was our first late checkout in a while; we didn\u2019t leave until around 11. Our driver Ratan showed up with Sarah\u2019s sari, so we ran back up to the hotel room to put it on. It looked great! People were definitely staring as we left the hotel, but we assumed it was just a rare sight seeing a white person in a sari (we get a lot of stares as white people as-is).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We missed breakfast, but our driver assured us that the best place to eat was about an hour drive away. So we drove to get out of the city before stopping at a sort of rest station. We both went to the bathroom, and Sarah was in the bathroom a while. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While there, Sarah tried adjusting the sari since she was getting more stares (and laughs?) than seemed warranted. Luckily there were some teenagers in there who looked at her outfit and said \u201cThat\u2019s wrong.\u201d Sarah was momentarily worried she was about to get canceled, but they just meant she was wearing it wrong and happily adjusted it so it looked good. Eric saw the teenagers leaving the bathroom giggling and Sarah came out looking elegant as ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Sari is fixed thanks to the nice teenagers in the bathroom.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Lunch didn\u2019t disappoint. We got a thali platter, which is a sort of a sampler platter that\u2019s apparently a specialty of the region (we knew it was going to be good when we saw it was an \u201cpure veg\u201d restaurant). The food was fantastic; it came with butter paneer, naan, some sort of dal dish, and then who knows what else. All delicious, and by far our cheapest meal. It even came with ice cream!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
And lunch was served\u2014all vegetarian and delicious!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
The rest stop restaurant gave us a few things \u201cwith compliments\u201d including this rock-sugar and star-anise mix which we learned about the other day. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For drinks, Eric ordered sweet lassi and Sarah got the salted lime drink. Turns out, they use black salt, so the lime drink tasted like sulfur. Eric tried to drink it to be polite, but we didn\u2019t finish it (the lassi was good though).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
This guy loves the Dew.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After that, it was pretty much driving all day. Sarah started to research our options for Egypt, and Eric wrote some blog posts. By the time we got to Delhi, the air quality was so bad (maxing out the AQI index at 500) that we couldn\u2019t really do much or leave our hotel. It was so bad that the city banned non-essential diesel vehicles temporarily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Air quality index maxed out, so we couldn\u2019t leave our hotel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So we pretty much just ate at the hotel and planned the rest of our trip. Eric ended up calling ANA to change our flights slightly (added one more day to accommodate Nile cruises), and Sarah booked hotels. It was pretty low key, and we had to be at the airport at 5 AM the next day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Ready to go out (and by out we mean downstairs to the hotel restaurant since we couldn\u2019t go outside). Fun fact about this sari: it is just one really long piece of fabric (minus the custom top). Eric helped with creating the pleats by hand. It\u2019s quite an involved process to wear but ultra comfy and stylish. Sarah received lots of compliments from locals. Maybe she should wear this every day for her next visit.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sarah and Eric travel back to Delhi and get stuck inside<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1914,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[27,38],"class_list":["post-1478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-india","tag-delhi","tag-jaipur"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1478"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3568,"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1478\/revisions\/3568"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}