Durham, North Carolina

The stop after Charleston is Washington DC and we are excited. As the drive is a bit too long to do in one go, we broke up the journey by stopping over in Durham.

Durham is the home of Duke University. It is a lovely small town with historic roots including the surrender of the Southern Armies to General Sherman in 1865. It is also where American Tobacco was founded:

American Tobacco Company was founded in 1890 by J.B. Duke through a merger of several US tobacco manufacturers. The company, at one point, produced more than 90% of all cigarettes in the US and was one of the largest corporations in the world. American Tobacco Company was one of the original 12 members of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

We took a walk down main street and had dinner at a great modern-Indian restaurant called Viceroy. The food was totally delicious, service friendly and there was a great vibe as the restaurant was quite busy. We started with a mango papaya salad and Momo Bhel (vegetable dumplings topped with scallions,onion, and tomato) and tossed with house-made Schezuan sauce). The main was hariyali chicken (green herb and yogurt marinated chicken kebabs tossed with onions & spices). After not having had Indian food in a long while, we fell on the dishes with gusto.

After dinner we took a walk through town and discovered, just across the working railway line, the American Tobacco Campus which was built on the old ATC tobacco factory site.

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We were there during summer break so the campus was pretty quiet. But this gave us the opportunity to really get a good look around. It must be amazing to work or study at this campus, as its pretty gorgeous.