June 2nd-Exciting times in Srinagar

Thursday was very exciting! We got up in the morning, had a nice breakfast of yoghurt, milk, and cereal and got ready to go to the airport to go to Srinagar. My finger was quite swollen, and so was Jo’s hand where she had been stung by two wasps. I couldn’t get my wedding ring off, but thought it was because it was hot in Delhi and my fingers frequently swell in the heat.

All of the guide books had recommended that if one wanted to rent a houseboat, you should wait until you got to Srinigar to check them out and pick the one you wanted. There were lots of warnings in the Lonely Planet about how people regularly got scammed, had their passports taken and they were then held hostage for lots of money, made to spend ridiculous amounts to get boat rides from the house boats across the lakes, harassed by salespeople in boats who wouldn’t leave them alone, etc.

David had tried to book us a room in a hotel recommended by the guide books but they had no availability for the night we arrived, so the owner offered another place for us to stay and David booked us a night in the Hotel Sunshine. We planned to only stay in a hotel one night and move to a houseboat the next day anyway. How bad could it be? Pretty bad. Hotel Sunshine made a Motel 6 look pretty good. The place was truly falling apart. There was a big chunk of carpet missing outside of our bathroom, so a little piece of fake carpet was plopped on top of it.


But the major problem of the day was that my ring finger was swelling and it was looking more and more unlikely that I would be able to get my ring off. David’s contact told Jo that Nick the Jeweler down the Boulevard could cut the ring off if necessary. It would take him one hour to get the equipment, and he would stay until 7. Well, that certainly increased our efforts to get the ring off. I put my hand in ice and icy water but it in fact made the swelling worse, so after 30 minutes or so we moved on. Jim tried to massage the fluid out of my finger, but no better. I kept my hand up over my head, but no better. In the meantime, no one had had a chance to go look for a houseboat. So Jo tied my hand in a black scarf and tied the other end to the light fixture over the bed so that my hand was suspended over my head – it looked a little kinky, but maybe it would work. I took 50 mg of Benadryl, an Advil, and put a scrapbooking video on to keep me amused.

Unfortunately, while pictures of this scene do exist, there potential for blackmail prohibit me from posting them, you'll just have to ask to see the scrapbook

ff David, Jo, and Jim went to look for a houseboat. They started at the Houseboat owner’s Association and were assigned a shakar boatman to help them find a houseboat. He actually took them to another lake and showed them two houseboats that belonged to him or his family. The other lake was far away and would have required a car to get back to the town. The man was not interested in showing them any other boats, and ultimately brought them back to the hotel. Jo thought he was “swarmy” and we shouldn’t trust him.

I had already decided that keeping my hand above my head in the black scarf hadn’t worked, and, in fact, the finger was more swollen. Now I could not move the ring at all. Off we went to Nick the Jeweler, who did not have the equipment to cut the ring. He offered to take us to the “factory” where someone could cut off the ring. David said he would go with me, and off we went in the autorickshaw with two men. We had no idea where we were going, and I must admit, I would have been very nervous if I were alone with two men from a different culture, driving through small alleys in a city I had never been to before and knew not a word of the language. However, David was there with me and that made me feel much more secure. We stopped at a closed door in a small alley and one of the men knocked on the door but no one was there. Off we went again, down some more small streets. We stopped in front of a building and a man came out, looked at my finger, and told us to come with him. We got upstairs where two other young men were working on jewelry. The man in charge first looked at the ring carefully to see if there was any place he could try to cut the ring. Unfortunately it has rubies and diamonds closely spaced around the entire ring, so there was no good place to try. However, he decided where he was going to try and attempted to cut the ring with a scissors-like object but he could not do it. Then he switched to a miniature hacksaw and made a groove in the top of the ring, but couldn’t saw through the ring. He looked very unhappy and the way that I have looked when I am trying to do a bone marrow or spinal tap and things are NOT going well. Finally he took the tiny blade off the hacksaw, fed the blade between my ring and finger and reattached the blade. Then he began to saw back and forth on the undersurface of the ring. The ring began to heat up, and it was pretty painful. However, soon he thought he had made enough of a groove with the hacksaw so he went back to the first instrument. I think he was able to get the jaws in the two grooves and with one snap – my wedding ring was broken. He had to pull it apart so there was about one-third of an inch opening before I could get the ring off. The gentleman was so nice and said he could fix the ring, but I said that I didn’t want to decide on the size until the swelling was gone and I would have it fixed at home. He would not accept any money. We went back to the hotel, and gave the two men some money. I will definitely stop at Nick the Jeweler’s to see if I can find a piece or two to buy before we leave Srinigar.

We had dinner at a vegetarian Indian restaurant next door where we had spinach paneer, chick peas, a mixed vegetable dish, roti and rice. I was so wiped out by everything had happened that I was in bed before 9 pm, and even though the noise from the street was deafening, I fell immediately to sleep. Quite a day!

Wednesday, June 1st, 2011-Excitement in Delhi!

Once at David and Jo’s in Delhi, we began the complicated process of doing the laundry in their apartment, which requires lots of hands-on involvement at multiple stages in the process or the water will overflow onto the floor – and we had many loads of wash to do.

There is no dryer, so the clothes are pinned on the clothesline that David rigged up on the terrace. Jo and Rita went out to hang the clothes, which dry rapidly in the heat of Delhi, when all of a sudden Jo started screaming, holding her finger, and beginning to cry. I thought she had cut herself on something, but she had been stung by a wasp!

She went into the apartment and Rita continued with the clothes. Although she was very careful to keep her eyes out (or so she thought), she got stung by one or two wasps on her left ring finger.

Since Rita has a severe bee sting allergy, we watched with trepidation to see if she would break out with hives, but she did not. She removed her wedding ring because she wasn’t sure if her finger would swell (more about that later).

Ultimately the wasp nest was discovered, between the glass and the outer frame of the door to the balcony, so that every time that the door was opened, the wasps got disturbed and….well you now know the (part of) the rest of the story!

Now, Jo and Rita headed off to Dr. Marya’s office, where both Jo’s ob/gyn and her husband, an endocrinologist that Jo works with, share space. It was very nice to meet Dr. Dolly Marya who is going to be the physician who delivers NoahBelle (possibly). She listened to the baby’s heart rate and we could hear the heart as well which was very exciting for Rita. The baby is currently in breech position, and Jo is between 27 and 28 weeks pregnant. Mom and baby doing fine.

In the afternoon, we went to FabIndia which is an upscale place to buy salwar kemeez, saris, and men’s clothes as well. Jim wanted to come along so he could “vote” on the potential outfits before Rita bought something Jim didn’t like. He was incredibly patient since we spent about three hours there, trying on many combinations of pants, tops, and scarves. Rita wanted something dressy so it could potentially be worn to a Black Tie function. The outfits we got were pretty but not as “glitzy” as I thought they might/could be. Jo said that “glitzy” is something the nouveau riche do. We bought a pair of black silk pants and stretchy off-white pants that are called churidar which bunch up at the ankle as opposed to salwar which Jim said emphasized every bad part of my body. I also bought a kameez in a wine red, and two pretty scarves and a white kurti which is a separate top. That night I wore the kurti and one of Jo’s black scarves. Complete with my wedding ring (which I put back on so everyone would know I was really married to Jim – more about that later), we were ready to go. All together, very fancy and the churidar pants, the kameez and the scarves will be shown off at a Black Tie somewhere, no doubt.

Then off to Tannie’s and Murad’s for dinner. It was quite amazing. First of all, their house had been highlighted in the Indian House and Garden magazine this spring. It was really neat to be sitting in a room and looking at the same room in a glossy magazine. We also got a tour of the rest of the house, including their bedroom. The dining room was quite large, and was set up with the food all around the perimeter of the round table in the middle. I went into the kitchen to see the food being prepared, and watched them make goat kebabs – which tasted kind of like a pate. Tannie is a cook book author and has written 18 cookbooks – but in her home she supervises the cooking, although she did make the pulao. She gave me three cookbooks which will be a great thing to remember this evening by. The food was FANTASTIC – in fact, it might have been the best dinner I ever ate. There was the pulao, the okra, kebabs, dal, tinda (baked squash with potatoes – baked with cream and some spices in the oven), mint yoghurt chutney to go with the pulao. Mango and ice cream for dessert!