March 7

Jeff woke me at 830!😲  I guess I needed the rest. We readied, and he went down to check on hot water for my coffee and find out about breakfast (it's included). He came back with passable hot water for my coffee. They just are not set up for 'do-it-yourselfers' and not a hot pot in our room. I'll make do. Finally, received our breakfast of stuffed paratha and pickle. The paratha was great. But the pickle (which Jeff likes and eats) was all of inedible parts, except a carrot slice. Jeff was not impressed with it. We were finished by 10 and decided today would be a shopping day. 

We set out walking to get some steps. First, we found a pharmacy and picked up another antibiotic for Jeff. He still has a wet cough but he is feeling more head congestion, like his sinuses. Then we found a couple of grocery stores! This city is large enough and they actually have some here. Amritsar is about 1.5 million population. Between the two stores we found most of what we needed and then some!

Now we had been seeing fish restaurants! Believe it or not, this area is known for great fish! Amritsar is a long way away from the ocean… Okay more questions!?! But we decided to go with it and found the restaurant, Makhan Fish and Chicken Hut. We stepped up, saw the fresh cut, seasoned fish fillets and knew it was what we wanted. We were seated, no one else was there, but this does not deter us as we have experienced this before, several times. Anyway, we were deciding on what to order and the waiter made recommendations: Fish Fried Sangara (Amritsar Fish), and Chicken Pakoda. We went with these. So glad we did! First, we were given a salad plate of white radishes and a green salsa-type dip. Then the fish! It was seasoned very well and had a nice light crispness on the outside, but still moist inside. Next was the chicken, a half. It was seasoned very nicely also. It was just a great, mostly meat lunch.

Recharged, we trek to our last shopping venture. There is another Decathlon store (we found great, light weight, breathable and inexpensive shirts in this chain in Mumbai). We found and bought three more for both of us. (We will be getting rid of some T-shirts. They just take too long to air dry, when we do laundry; and have a shrink factor when we have gotten them back from send out washings). Anyway, chalk it up to things you learn.

One last item – not really shopping but a necessity… a coffee roaster for me. Jeff found a roaster, Double Shot,😊!  Seems appropriate! From here we hired a tuk-tuk to get back with all our stuff! This was our first ride here in an electric tuk-tuk. So quiet! Wishing everyone would drive one and stop using their horns!! Dream big.

Anyway, we plan on a light supper – peanut butter Nutella sandwiches (some of our grocery supplies). Oh, I'm going to mention… here, we have seen sliced sandwich bread, widely available. We were told they grow wheat here and it is true. Yeah for wheat!! Yeah for fish!! I'm a happy girl! Tomorrow we will do a tour deal Jeff arranged.