 In the morning we went shopping
near the hotel. There were tourist stores, Canal Street type
stalls and a bazaar underground. We'd heard that we should watch
out for shoeshine men. When we saw one, we quickly moved away
from him. I was a little ahead of the group and when I turned back
to look, I saw a second man standing suspiciously with his arms
folded. We walked about ten more steps when one of us looked down and
saw excrement on a sneaker. The second half of the the
scheme is for the shoeshine man to clean it off for a fee but he didn't
make the offer. With the help of a rock, a leaf and moist towelettes, the
shoe was cleaned. We continued our shopping and we all
returned to the hotel with multiple shopping bags. The next outing
was a wild ride on the auto rickshaw.
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 We
saw a man sewing on an old Singer sewing machine. We
visited the India
Gate war memorial and walked to the presidents home and the Bahai
House.
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We
found the office of the Communist Party of India.
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Back at the hotel, the group presented Uncle Eddie with a
book which included letters of thanks from members of the group and
ticket stubs from places which we had visited. Rasheed, Uncle
Eddie's partner in India also gave presents to the group. The women
received shawls and the men scarves. Dhan-ya-vad - thank you.
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 We boarded a bus and
stopped to visit an Indian synagogue which was established by Iraqi
Jews. It was a basic building with a simple contemporary
sanctuary. Apparently, there are very old synagogues in the town
of Cochin to which the original Jews
migrated but we did visit them. Before
dinner, the restuarant presented a slide show with live ethnic dances of India.
We then drove to the airport, made
our way through check-in and security and boarded our plane for the long
ride home.
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