And away we go …

 

Well the day has arrived and we are ready to begin our next adventure on our “Adventurous Life”. A late departure means that you have the whole day to fill in … so there was work, some house work, a final pack, a visit to the parents, a quick shop for some last minute things, a jigsaw puzzle, dinner, dishes … and a FLAT TYRE!

Normally we would have a driver take us to the airport as with the cost of airport parking or a taxi it actually works out to be pretty similar but you travel in style and arrive right at the airport door. Because this trip is only 9 days we decided we would take our own car and park in the long term car park. However, when Ian went out to get some food for dinner for us he discovered that our front left tyre was not looking very healthy. So … what do you do? All the tyre places at this stage are closed … so a quick phone call to our fabulous George and a car was booked to take us to the airport with very little issue. We drove our car into the garage where it will sit … with the tyre slowly losing air. It has a lovely big screw/nail in it! We will deal with it when we get back (at which point it will be seriously flat!).

Our driver Muhammad arrived promptly at 8.45 and whisked us off to the airport. We waited in line for our check in and when it was our turn were asked for the copy of our India Visa that had our photo on it … which we didn’t have. Nowhere in the documentation Ian had received indicated that we needed anything but a  print out of the email he had received confirming our visa status as approved. So off the side, phones in hand, a quick scramble on the internet and PDFs of our photo visas were downloaded to our phones and our check in process could continue.

The whole security and passport control is such a smooth and efficient process nowadays (barring an electrical outage or the wifi being down) and so we found ourselves airside within an hour of arriving at the airport. Our flight departs in about 2 hours … so we have time to kill. Time for a little puzzling for Ian and a little stitching for me.

Our travel buddies for this trip are Echi and Platy ... they are snuggled away now but being nocturnal animals who know what they will get up to on the plane.

So ... this is Day 1 (or day 0 ... the travel day). We have a 9+hr flight to Bangkok, a change of plane and then a 4+hr flight to Delhi.

Then the real adventure begins!