Today I say good bye to the French who are on route to Agra.I will go in a minibus to a hotel in Delhi to relax before my flight back to China at 3.30am which will route via Shangers to Beijing and have time to reflect on my adventure.
I was woken by the sound of an expelling of air from an internal human cavity, it sounded like it was from the next room, my bathroom! Followed by the sound of running water. It was 4 am, and I was sleeping in the small gate house, so I knew no one was above me or even adjoining me. What I did not expect was that the staff quarters were underneath me. For the next 2 hours, I heard all the bathroom noises possible with smatterings of Hindi in between. This must be my payback for keeping the French awake during that night in the desert. To think I turned done an upgrade in the main fort, sensible as JF and Denise did not have hot water. I spent the next 3 hours going through over 5 hours of riding footage and 1000 photos to put on thumb drives for the French. We met up and breakfast and carried on from the night before, well they did as I was only getting some of the French. After breakfast we said our goodbyes swapping addresses and e mail addresses with the promises of keeping in touch, I have even been offered to come and visit both sets of family in Normandy and Toulouse. So off the French go to Agra to see the Taj, while Bourdain and I grab a ride with Vickie and Silent Stan back to the Vintage Ride office in New Delhi.
An hour into journey and Bourdain is complaining to Vickie, can’t this van go over 60? Maybe 70-80? Vickie replies no spare tyre ! After 10 minutes Vickie puts his foot down 65,66, 67….and then bang bang wobble wobble the near side front wheel is making a racket ! Bourdain says that is no bad tyre it’s something worse and now we wonder are we going to get there in one piece? We did, a nice pizza at vintage rides offices and meet the lovely Denise who with her French accent and phoning me up at nice intervals made me go on this trip. The drama did not end there though, Bourdain let the van go and with a taxi drivers and über strike in New Delhi there was nothing for it but to get a tuk tuk back to the hotel, where I promptly flooded the shower tray and bath room and had to put towels by the door to stop it flooding the bedroom. I sit in now what can be described as a Indian real beer bar , wishing the two weeks were not over and I could embark on another adventure because this is not the last and it has got my appetite whetted for a solo trip 🙂 …. although to go with Bourdain again would be fun, as I think he could be as mad as me !!!