Day 5

Around 11am, Swati's father and some friends stopped by the hotel to check in on us. That was fine for me, but the other guys had gotten in pretty late, so they had just hauled themselves up.

The plan for the day was to Singhad Fort, which is at the top of a mountain just outside Pune. We had the driver take us there, and thankfully you can take the very steep road almost all the way to the top these days. In comparison to Daulatabad, the fort structure itself is much less impressive, but the nearly mile-high moutaintop setting is amazing. The fort sits on a narrow ridgeline, so you only have to walk a short distance to get a completely different view on the other side of the mountain. In walking around out there, we even managed to find some places that were far enough off the beaten path that there wasn't even any garbage littered around. Amazing! However, on the way back down, I let a few guys have some water from the bottle I was carrying with me. After I kept telling them that they could keep it and that I didn't wanted back, one of them shrugged and tossed it down on the side of the trail. Sigh. So I picked it up and carried it the rest of the way down with me, even though it really won't make much of a difference in the whole scheme of things.

We got back in the late afternoon, relaxed a bit, and then headed over to the Saxena house for the first real event of the wedding, the cocktail party. The house was decorated with lights all over it, and I believe 30-some relatives spending the nights there (tents and piles of mattresses had been brought in to expand the living space of the house).

The cocktail party was held just down the block at the community clubhouse/lawn. There were lights there too, plenty to eat and drink, a live band, dancing, and probably more people at this pre-party than were at Dennis and Swati's American wedding. Met lots of good people, but by the end discovered that the group of drivers are basically the coolest guys to hang out with. Appropriately, the night was finished off with a rousing rendition of The Chicken Dance.

Upon returning to the Turf Club, I realized that the previous several hours were the longest I'd gone in the last two days without thinking of the toilet, so it was nice to know that was over. My neck had stiffened up pretty well by the end of the night though.