Sheila Dikshit, Bjorn Borg and Sarah Ulmer

Short Version:
Filth, filth, and more filth. Sheila Dikshit. Fireworks and flying. Bjorn Borg, Sara Ulmer (or not). And some more filth.

Long Version:
We'd checked out of the hotel in the morning, leaving our bags securely stored there while we explored the city. When we arrived back at the hotel, we found our bags still in our cleaned but not-yet newly-occupied room. So we washed the worst of the black filth off our feets in the blue bathtub, then tried to wash the blue bathtub clean of the transferred filth, then gave up and went up to the rooftop restaurant for one last delicious foods experience.

The city was alive with fireworks as we ate. The sky became extra-hazy as the smoke joined the general Delhi smog. Sheila Dikshit was mercifully absent from dinner, having been a persistent presence throughout this second Delhi visit; she'd appeared on billboards and in newspapers, and on signs at multiple buildings - including her house. Sheila wasn't the creepiest creeperstalker of the day though; that dubious honor went to the utterly mad-looking short man in the shiny purple tracksuit. He was first noticed on one of the Metro trains, staring balefully about with his bizarrely protruberant eyeballs. His long hair was held in place by an elasticated towelling headband, like Bjorn Borg wore during his heyday. In fact, this guy kind of looked like Bjorn Borg, only about two feet shorter, and with huge googly eyes. And Indian. So not really much like Bjorn Borg at all. Apart from the headband. He was lost from view during the crush of exiting the Metro train, and neither of us gave him another thought.. until he strode briskly up the escalator behind us, planted the crown of his beheadbanded head into the small of the Puppetback, and then stood still, leaning into the contact like some kind of domesticated animalian enjoying contact with its human. It was odd behavior, but he didn't murder us violently, or non-violently, and for that we were grateful.

The fireworks didn't let up all through the evening, and were still lighting up the night as we made our way to the airport around midnight. A good day in the Hindu calendar for weddings, we were told, and we saw a number of festive events still underway as Sunday rolled into Monday and we rolled towards aeroplanic departings, past trucks towing other trucks, and broken down cars being pushed by worse-for-wear wedding partiers. The airport hadn't changed much, although there was some queue chaos at passport control that could have used the attentions of a uniformed, moustachioed, stick-wielder, and a Departure Gate security lady took undue and really irritating extra interest in the contents of Puppetbag and Puppetpockets.

And then we were off, and eating, drinking, and sleeping our way to London, where we bought coffee so disgusting we abandoned it nearly untouched. Vile filth, and not in a good way.

We then hauled our travel-weary selves onto a plane full of the Spanish schoolgirl Tae Kwon Doe team, whose manager looked like a more haggard version of Sarah Ulmer, and went to Barcelona.