Day 19 - Up to Delhi

Today started really early. Earlier than the 4:45am alarm. I was woken by a “bing” on my phone at about 3:30am so I looked at it as I wasn’t sleeping much anyway. It was news from home. Jim, the chap looking after our house and our pets, had messaged me on WhatsApp to let me know that our cat, Wilson, had passed away today. Very sad news as he’d been a part of our family since our very early days in Bendigo. He was more than 18yo and had been losing condition for quite some months. But, as they say, he’d had a pretty good innings. Kerry was very upset as he’d really become much closer to her in the last couple of years.

Eventually we did get up just before the alarm was due to sound. Has quick shower, threw the last few things into our bags and went down to Reception at 5:15am, fifteen minutes ahead of the appointed 5:30am pick-up time. The poor young chap who was on “night duty” was asleep on the floor covered by just a blanket with his fan blowing full throttle in him. It was fiendishly hot and humid this morning. A car pulled up outside the closed gates so I went down to open them and let Ravi, our driver, into the courtyard. This woke up the young chap who just stood and watched while our cases were loaded. Fair enough. Nothing else for him to do. At 5:25am we waved good-bye to the Spice Heritage hotel and started winding our way through the maze of Kochi streets to the airport. The Spice Heritage was a really good hotel, in the best location and with a wonderful colonial ambiance. I’d stay there again.

Ravi is a very cautious driver. His boss should be very pleased with the way he takes care of his vehicle. He slowed down for every bump in the road (and, believe me, there are hundreds and hundreds of them) and rarely took the car much beyond 50kph. It was bordering on tortuous to be sitting in the back urging the speedometer to get up to 60kph, even just for a few kilometres. About 75 minutes later out 45 minute journey ended outside Terminal 1. Ravi grabbed a trolley for us and we headed for the terminal.

We flew with Vistara Airlines. I’d checked-in successfully online last night so we just needed to drop our checked-in luggage. As described earlier, we’d taken an axe to the contents of our suitcases in an effort to ensure that we were not going to be faced with any problems at the bag drop. Both bags weighed in at 16kg each. We’d already added 5kg to the basic 15kg so we were sweet. The girl insisted that our little blue bag be checked-in also. We were just gonna take it on board. In total it all came to 39kgs plus one carry-on. All good. The planning paid dividends.

After a quick bite and a coffee we proceeded through the security gate into the Departures hall and waited for the boarding call. That came soon enough and we were on the plane. The configuration of the Vistara Airbus A320 was really comfortable and spacious. It is a 3 + 3 layout with just a centre aisle. The seats were broad and the legroom was expansive. I couldn’t reach the bottom of the seat in front with my feet. We were in Row 10 adjacent to the emergency exit so that may have had something to do with it but after a quick glance around all the other accommodation looked to be the same. The flight took about 3.5hrs with clear skies all the way. In Delhi, the pilot lined up to approach the runway, began his decent and then suddenly, when no more than 10mtrs from the tarmac, he put the boot in and we were up, up and away again. A little unnerving, to say the least.  No explanation was given and we just did another circumnavigation of Delhi. Next time around he nailed it.

Indira Ghandi International Airport is very new and very modern. According to their own advertising it’s won the best international airport four years running. All our bags arrived at the carousel in a timely manner and our Intrepid rep and driver were there to meet us. Pretty soon we were on our way to the Hotel Perfect in Karol Bagh in old Delhi. Our hotel is old and small but clean and the staff are numerous and attentive. The streets around the hotel are narrow, crowded, noisy, unkempt but all typically India. Yes, it’s more full-on than Kochi and probably more reminiscent of Madurai or Mysore. But we were ready for it as our erstwhile traveling companions has given us fair warning of what to expect. Our bags dropped in our room went went to the very pleasant rooftop for a breather ans a coffee. There we met two girls (one about my age, just retired, and the other in her early-mid twenties) who were at the hotel  about to start a GAdventures small group tour. We spoke about our wonderful Intrepid experience in Southern India as they were going there in the second half of their four week tour – covering pretty much the same places we had.

Coffee finished, it was down to the streets for a wander. In the first 100m were set upon (figuratively, not literally) by three different touts who just would not take “no” for an answer and would just not go away. All we could do was adopt the Johnnie Walker approach – Just Keep Walking. They eventually gave up on us. Grabbed some water and retired to the hotel. A couple of hours later the chap at Reception guided us to the hotel’s restaurant just around the corner where we enjoyed a couple of chicken dishes, some lemon rice, roti bread and a nice, icy cold beer!!! The first in almost three weeks and boy was it good!