Travel stories of a caravan duo, plus a 5th Wheel and Isuzu truck in Europe
This week we took a leisure cruise up and down the River Sal, five hours of gentle boating to view birds and local fishermen, riverbanks and scenery. Lunch was cooked on board, chicken starter, fish main, fruit dessert and free flowing drinks all for £12 a head.
Suitably chilled and a little sun and wind burned we returned to our local beach to catch the sunset.
All aboard!
As the sun was setting we watched locals pulling in their catch.
A good selection of food has been experienced in our first week, along with a little bit of exercise in the form of dancing. A giant 1kg seabass, a kilo of tiger prawns, fish and chips and lots of chicken tikka massala, butter chicken, mutton rogan josh, vegetable pakora, tandoori chicken skewers and nan breads, all devoured at sunset before boogying the night away.
The bill shown is £25 in the UK !!! Cheap as chips!!
And, Graham befriended a couple on their honeymoon who introduced him to a sheesha pipe 😁😁
A young Indian driver who spoke very little English was despatched to take us on a pre-booked whistle-stop tour of the city, visiting as many sights as we could in 5 hours, but sadly, due to delays in unloading the excessive luggage on our flight (no, not ours), our trip ended up being a shorter 3 hours.
The fun started when the driver took us to a 5 seater car and a small boot, despite 4 months of emails asking for a large vehicle to take large suitcases!! That’s India for you. No worries, with a typical head shake, the cases were wedged into a roof rack and off we went.
We wanted to give Graham and Diane a view of real India and that’s what we did.
We left the airport suburbs and drive Indian style, 5 cars and 3 scooters abreast on a 4 lane road, non existent lane control where everyone toots their horn as they pass a scooter or pushbike. We went through the poor areas of town where lower classes sleep on matting on pavements with plastic sheeting for protection, secured on railings to form a roof. That will be their sleeping, cooking and living area, some are fed by co-operatives locally, some do daily work but they are happy.
First stop, Qutub Minar, a red sandstone tower 72.5 metres high, making it the tallest brick built minaret in the world, started in 1192 and completed in 1368, surrounded by royal tombs and Mosque.
David queued to purchase entry tickets, £5 each and immediately the cashier started bowing to him. Every time David said anything, the man put his hands together in prayer form and bowed his head.
We only had about 20 minutes to quickly admire the Tower and remains, we should have spent a few hours there but were on a tight schedule, but those few minutes there opened our eyes to the fact that we were White Westerners that stuck out a mile!! Diane and I spent our time being stared at, videoed, photographed and being smiled at, everyone saying hello, and several asking for Selfies with us, which we agreed to but moved on quickly before the next family or group asked for one!
We then drove around the city, viewing the affluent Embassy area, where every country in the World has an Embassy in a huge plush mansion with massive manicured gardens; the Government offices and Parliament, which were preparing for an upcoming Voting day and finally India Gate and its gardens before heading back to the airport for our final leg of the flight.
Departure No 1 started on Wednesday 11th January at 8am with a drive to the airport, leaving behind an unusually cold and grey Alicante. Our smooth flight went well and we arrived into a freezing Gatwick Airport early afternoon.
Diane and Graham’s travel adventures began at 7am with a 7 hour hour coach trip from Hull to Heathrow via Nottingham, Milton Keynes and other midland cities to end at Heathrow’s Terminal 3, Virgin Media’s check in desk.
Arrival No 1 at Gatwick, our flight from Alicante to Gatwick went smoothly then our pre-booked taxi transfer driver from Gatwick to Heathrow was a Romanian chap who had a big chip on his shoulder about immigrants coming into the UK (yes, really!!). Thankfully our M25 journey was pre office-turnout time so quick and uneventful and we were at Virgin ‘s check in desk in ample time.
For Departure No 2, Heathrow to New Delhi, our chatty check-in lady Francine ran a sweepstake on who’s bags were heavier, the loser having to buy the first drink in the bar later – if we were buying champagne, she promised to join us…….. Diane, 15kg, Juliet 22.7kg, David 23.3kg, Graham’s 23kg exactly!! 😀 Needless to say a few drinks were quaffed alongside dinner, but sadly Francine never appeared, she seemed so genuine…..
The only downside to being one of the first in the queue was that our bags were first on and last off at the other end but waiting for baggage in Delhi gave us time to change into cooler clothes and freshen up.
The overnight flight from Heathrow to New Delhi was jam packed, lots of students and youngsters heading off to work at schools and missions and lots of Brits “doing the tour” of the tourist sites in Northern India as well as Indians returning home. By the time dinner was served at about 9.30pm, because we were in row 56 (out of 82) the meat option for the hot meal had just about run out. The stewardess said “I have 2 portions of chicken tikka massala left so one of you can have a paneer (tofu like cheese) curry” and duly dished out……one paneer curry, one English breakfast with sausage, bacon, potatoes, tomato and eggs and one lasagne!! Talk about confused and amused, but as we had eaten earlier in the evening so weren’t really starving, just picked at bits. I certainly enjoyed my paneer curry, poppadoms and chutney but rejected the chocolate orange mousse dessert. It just didn’t quite go with curry……🤔
Sleep evaded us, bums became numb, legs and ankles swelled and at 3am body clock time, fast forward to 8.30am Indian time, we were served breakfast – a warmed nan bread filled with curried potato and lentils and side pots of yoghurt and fruit. The cries of “I’m not eating THAT!” came from all the British filled seats, except ours.
Since I had Covid in May 2023, my taste buds have been non-existent and I am constantly craving strong tastes and flavours, a sensation that was well and truly satisfied by this scrummy breakfast snack, yum! I hear you all cringe…..
Arrival no 2 was into New Delhi airport, a hustling bustling airport, and an even busier exit area, where we eventually located our driver. Bags were loaded onto a roof rack and we were bundled into a car before being taken on a whistle-stop tour of a few main sights in the city for the next few hours. (More to come on that!)
Back to New Delhi Airport for Departure No 3, to Goa. Late afternoon departure meant we had seen a sunset and sunrise in one day but on different planes. The last time we exited Goa’s Dabolim airport it was August 2020 and we were shepherded into a tiny hot room, bags scanned, body scanned, paperwork examined and passports quickly stamped by the military before leaving to head to the UK via New Delhi. At Delhi there was more chaos in sweltering heat with airport staff not knowing what to do. BUT that was Covid times.
Arrival no 3, in Dabolim Goa this time, we found a sparkling new cool airport, clear signage, cheerful passport officers, food outlets and a duty free shop and ample taxis outside willing to barter for our business to take us to our accommodation.
Finally, Arrival no 4 on Thursday evening was at our resort accommodation 31 hours later on 8pm Goa time, 3pm uk time! Time for dinner then bed!!
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