Jan 4, 2014 | Blair Lee

It is an 11 hour drive from Johdpur to Delhi. We flew instead. We needed to be at the airport at noon. Before we left Johdpur Sodhi picked us up to take me shopping for spices. People kept telling me to buy my spices there. I had already bought a few spices in Dubai and Jaipur, but I waited to do most of my spice buying here. I bought the spices then checked on the US Customs website to make sure I could bring them home. That was a backwards way of doing it. Yes! I can! I fell in love with Indian cooking. I really cannot wait to start experimenting with it. I also bought myself an Indian vegetarian cookbook.

The spice merchant told me he has 3 grades of spices, Indian, medium, and American/European. His rating system is based on heat. According to him even American/European’s who like heat can only stand the medium. I took the American/European version of everything except the ginger. I like my ginger as hot as an Indian person we found out. When he found out how much I like to cook he invited me to his house so that his wife and mother could cook for me. Bummer, we are leaving today. He is the third person to invite me home to cook for me. Every time we could not do it for one reason or another 🙁

This is the clock tower in downtown Jodhpur.

We got back in the car, and Sodhi asked if we wanted to see fabric or antiques, or something I was not quite sure, but said yes, of course. At first we were surprised by what looked like a big warehouse or fabric store. It ended up being really fun and different than anything else we went to on the trip.

There was just no way Jim was going to agree to my bringing any of these big pieces home. The prices were amazing though. We walked downstairs through a lot of fabric items, too many to name really.

They began laying out bedspreads. Here they are one on top of the other.

This is Khush, the person who helped us. It was fun to sit and have them show us the different things they make and discuss the techniques. I could not believe the prices either. Yes, we did shop a bit here. Now I have to buy another suitcase for sure.

I did not buy this, but thought I would show it to you. This is the piece women put on their head so they can carry things on it.

Sodhi took us to the plane. Then he began the long drive back to Delhi. He stopped at our hotel in Delhi to drop off our new purchases.

We started to line up for the plane. One of the guards told me, “No, not line up.” Okay, so we moved over. Once they started boarding it was sort of a free for all to get on the plane. It didn’t matter because we all had assigned seats.

We are spending two nights in Delhi, then heading home. We decided to stay somewhere nice for those two nights. Prices on really nice hotels are very good by American standards. I checked out Delhi hotels on TripAdvisor and chose the Oberoi. Oh my goodness, did it turn out to be nice. When we got to the gate of the Oberoi they checked under the car with mirrored sticks. Then they checked our bags before letting us into the hotel. It is a beautiful hotel and the service is over the top great.

This was waiting for us when we got up to our room.

We decided to eat at the Asian restaurant upstairs at the hotel. I ordered a dish I had never heard of. It was an appetizer called crispy spinach. They gave me the recipe when I told them how much I liked it.

After that bed, in a really comfortable bed. Tomorrow we have to get up early to go see the people at Vidya Munirka one last time.