Dinner was finally served and luckily with a vegetarian option which was very competent, if predictable, Punjabi standards like mutter paneer, dal fry and channa. The desert was the best, a delicious tasty gajar halwa, and I’m not usually a fan. My dinner mate ordered the Shahi tukra, which I took a spoon to and it was a sugar syrup-soaked sponge cake with custard and had a silver leaf on top. Very tasty indeed. After many hours, we finally went back to one of the Punjab hotels where are friends were staying. It was close to midnight and it was Christmas for them, but not for us. But, we do recognize Boxing day, the next day after Christmas, so we all went to Anjali’s grandmothers and then went to all the local tourist attraction. Every where we went, it was mobbed with tourists, all Indian, except for us.
Most places have become highly commercialized. Vendors strips selling carved soapstone items, religious, secular or blank, which can be monogrammed with our names, or the name of someone we love. Then we drove a far way to Bheraghat , it’s a gorge on the Narmada river with ddramatic marble cliffs, then we drove to the Dhuandhar, also called the Smoke Falls because of the spray of mist that rises up form the crashing falls. This was really far away, so we didn’t hang around much and headed back to Punjab. We were still so tired from last nights festivities, thrown for our visiting friends, we didn’t really feel like entertaining them anymore today. On the car ride back, we were all silent, which was great, because I really didn’t feel like talking. We dropped our friend back off to their hotel and went to check out their hotel room, but ended up crashing on the their sofa and floor. That’s just how tired we were.