March 1, Thursday

March 1, Thursday

Well this was a quiet day spent watching TV (HBO keeps repeating the same 4 or 5 movies… must be on a continuous loop !)   and waiting for a response from my enquiry for the trip to China. 

Took some pictures from various locations on the 5^th floor of the Hotel Ibis to surrounding area.   Gurgaon is a burgeoning suburb,  highrises going up everywhere, malls, commercial buildings, etc.    but on the land in between, there are … not sure what to call them… abodes if you wish… that we would consider slums.   It’s not that the people don’t have pride, it’s that they don’t have money, so they seek shelter wherever they can.  
 From my room, side road.  Highrises in the distance and "shanty" housing nearby
   Close up of the shanty housing
  View of the main road the Ibis Hotel is on.
 View of the main road from the other side of the hotel
 Close up of a lady walking to get water nearby
 What the two rows look like.

 Finally this evening, (7 pm here = 8:30 am in Ottawa,  10 ½ hour time difference)   I got an e-mail response confirming that there was availability and that they could fit me in + twin me with another female to share a room !   YEAH for Tasneem, from GOWAY travel in Toronto ( 416 ?).  

Had a few small technical problems since they needed me to fill in a form and FAX it back to them  or have it scanned and email it back.   Hotel Ibis staff were very helpful.  I emailed the form to the front desk in an attachment, they printed it out for me to fill in, then they scanned it and emailed it back to me so that I could email it to Toronto !    I think I got the contact from a friend of someone who was in charge of the Classification Section at RCMP about 3 years ago now.  But I had tagged the travel site as a “favourite” and it sure panned out for me.

Kept sending emails back and forth until I realized that it was past midnight !   “OK Tasneem,  I have to go to sleep now”.