26/03/2012

Today was a big travel day. We got up before 7:00, showered, I had breakfast and Claire had none due to her travel sickness and instead popped a Vomistop pill.<br>

We said our goodbyes to over hosts and they gave us two good luck shawls for the journey.<br>

Our driver du-jour turned out to be the same driver we had for tiger hill and he got us down to Bagdogra airport without incident in 3 hours. Temperature on the way went up by at least 15C to more than 30C as we descended more than 2000m and we were well sweaty when we reached the airport.
We checked in and waited about half an hour before boarding commenced and plane to Delhi was on time leaving at 13:25 and went without incident and we landed at 15:30 in Delhi.
After having a look around in the airport shops we went for something to eat in a Chinese outlet - Claire wasn't impressed with her Dimsum, chips and springrolls but my Chilli Combo meal was pretty good.
Claire went looking in more shops while I sat down and wrote a few emails before we headed down to the gate. We were actually well impressed with the domestic airport terminal we were in because it was new, large and well spacious. Some of the art was also very good there.
Again we boarded on time on a propeller plane and were on our way on time again at 18:45. We arrived in Amritsar airport at 20:00 and got our luggage, which was another worry out of the way given the horror stories we have heard :-)
At the prepaid cab stand we were well screwed but we didn't have much choice, ending up paying Rs.800,- to take us 15km to our hotel in a Jeep. Not impressed but too tired to argue further with the a*hole.
However our hotel and room turned out to be quite nice and after checking in and having a walk around the hotel we ended up in the Behind Bars bar for a couple of drinks while watching Indian music videos on a projector screen.
At 23:00 we went up to bed, well tired...

Darjeeling town below Dekeling resort - dreary fog for 5 days - sigh...

Our hostess at Dekeling Resort

An impressive sculpture depicting Yoga positions in New Delhi domestic airport