Arrived at 5.30am and had a reasonably straightforward passage through immigration. Our bags were where they were supposed to be and the man was there to greet us with a sign for our tour (Peregrine- which begins tomorrow). We realised Craig wouldn’t recognise the sign so described him to the young man ( Jen having checked he was on the list to be greeted but 2 hours later) -“he’ll be the tall one with short blond hair” – and that luckily worked.

It was chilly and very foggy when we got outside the terminal at 6.30am. The drive was uneventful. About 40 minutes on half built motorways that looked like a succession of concrete barriers and sudden intersections. It was very foggy/smoggy so not much to look at even if we could see over the concrete walls.

The hotel is the Jaypee Siddharth. It is apparently 5 star but that’s maybe in a slightly off centre parallel universe. Still very adequate, if lacking in beauty and style.

The rooms are a good size.

Jen and Craig on the 4th floor and Mike and I on the first. The men focus all their attention on Mike (and now Craig). They will answer Jen and I but few actually talk to us. They didn’t even have Jen and I down as being in the rooms. Mostly we are just ignored but then again, no one expects anything from us either.

After freshening up we headed down for breakfast (as if we haven’t eaten enough), which is included with the room. Mike and Jen had cereal and eggs bene and I had the ‘North Indian breakfast. Savoury naan with vegetables in it with yoghurt, and a vegetable curry with these other fried bread things. Yum. I shared with Mike and Jen.

Craig arrived at about 10.45am and it was great to hear his news from London. All seems to be going well so far and his business is expanding with a new game out before the middle of next year.

We have booked for the Christmas Eve dinner event tonight at 8pm in the hotel. The restaurant manager told us they would be “carving the live turkey ” which made us a bit anxious. There are going to be a number of things that get lost in translation I can see. When we asked if there was a pool table we were told that “yes it is in front of the tapas bar.” That turned out to be a table beside the pool.

After Craig had some lunch we headed out for a walk in the nearby neighbourhood to find Xmas wrapping paper for Jen. One of the reception ladies gave her the name of the shop and Auntie Google showed us the way. (Vodafone offers your normal roaming and phone charges for $5 extra per day which I reckon is not too bad.)

That outing was interesting. Just walking along the road is a challenge as there’s no footpath that you can negotiate.

We met a couple of interesting and helpful men. One told me to keep my phone hidden away. He has a kiwi friend called Wayne. I didn’t recognise him from the photo! Another told Craig and Mike to watch out for the dogs because sometimes they lash out and bite for no reason. That’s a worry because they lie around everywhere and lots of them look just like the pavement. We will need to make sure we don’t stand on them. We walked through a nice little park that had lots of people out enjoying the afternoon.

It’s all a lot more like Hanoi than we expected for reasonably central Delhi – but with 3 wheeled tuk tuks instead of so many motorbikes. We are in a residential area rather than shops so not sure if you have people living in their shops and using the street outside as their living and family areas in the same way as they do in Vietnam.

We got a better photo of the outside of the hotel from the road coming back.

It’s not glamorous but is comfortable and the internet speed is good. The dining room and lobby is nicely decorated with Christmas things.

Many of the little shops we passed had Christmas decorations for sale.

After a rest we convened in the bar for pre-dinner drinks and then next door to the gala dinner. We all stuck to the Indian dishes, which were yummy. I tried some turkey. It looked the same as you’d expect but was lightly pink inside in places. I was mildly concerned until the chef carved some slices onto a frypan on a hot plate and proceeded to lightly cook the slices together with the gravy of choice. By that stage I was full anyway so didn’t have the salads etc. We had a bottle of Argentinian Malbec to share and that was Christmas Eve dinner.

Afterwards we had family quiz time ( I had saved the 5 minute quizzes from the paper and we did our best to get more than 8/10 – unsuccessfully.) Then Craig googled quotes and we had to guess the person, asking only yes or know questions. All in all a very typical Forret activity that has survived the past 32 years. It will probably be names of capital cities next time which is also a tried and true favourite.