Hi Laxmi, we're back!

As we descended over Delhi we were feeling uneasy, "is this right? We can't smell it." The first time I landed in Delhi I could smell the acrid burning while we were still in the air. This time it wasn't until we were walking the airport gangplank that we could smell and feel and see the yellow haze in the air. "Yay, we're back in Delhi!" we rejoiced, and I could go off and happily regurgitate.

It was a relatively smooth voyage for the six of us flying together. C unintentionally managed to get through a number of airport checkpoints, including security, with a copy of my boarding pass. They then let me through with the same boarding pass, a bit of confusion and apologetic smiles. "It says you've already gone through. Oh well..." After all, what mischief could be afoot if two people with identical names, dates of birth and seat assignments got on the same flight? Maybe it's just conjoined twins of parents so spare of imagination they could only come up with one name. Turned out that the airline site printed both our boarding passes for her, not just hers so she assumed she was flashing her own and no one could be arsed to compare it to the name on her passport until the final boarding gate. That woman, to her credit, was immensely curious as to why C had a boarding pass that did not match her passport and I had to be produced to help clear it up.

Sharp-eyed Suzette aside, Air France's motto could well be Air France: We Don't Give A F*ck. My luggage arrived with someone else's luggage sticker on it but there couldn't be two of us with Osprey backpacks containing a stuffed rabbit, a glitter gluestik and a boatload of Gravol.

The Air France flight attendants let one of our party hang out in their bar section and get so pie-eyed he couldn't understand what was happening. He was double fisting their booze and drinking his duty-free cognac with some new friends. At landing they came and checked that my seatbelt was done and under seat luggage stowed, but didn't even try to make him sit down. We had to go get him while he was rearranging his cognac bottles in the overhead bin and put him in his seat and buckle him in. If it had been a Canadian airline they would have either cut him off from the hooch earlier or tasered him.

So far it's been a mellow day in New Delhi. They are having a state election so shops are closed and traffic is relatively light. Some of us went off to the Laxmi Narayan Temple to get a little of that old time religion. It's a beautiful temple full of carvings and inscriptions. Many of the inscriptions provided wisdom for living but some of them were informational. I really liked the definitions it gave for the Swastika, Om and Shree.

Swastika: this symbol signifies an implied prayer for success, accomplishment and perfection, in every walk of life, under the guidance of the Almighty. It is found not only in India, but in the Buddhist countries. All the Aryan scripts, Roman, Greek & Latin are believed to have originated from this very symbol. (Veda)

This Om is the symbol of the idea that God is infinite, omnipresent, omnipotent, all-existence, all-intelligence and all-bliss.

This Shree is considered to be the symbol of the preserving energy of the supreme being.
And it looks a bit like someone bending over to be spanked, which is probably sacrilegious to even think. But doesn't it, just a little?