Southern India - 19 February 2012

Journey Home

I woke up and looked at my alarm clock.  It said 0450, so I decided to wait until 0510.  I woke up and looked again: 0520.  Whoops!  I dashed to the bathroom and showered.   We hadn’t had our wake up call, so I looked at the alarm clock again: 0450.  Oh dear!  I’d got up nearly an hour early!  So I did as much as I could in the bathroom until Jen woke up too.

By a miracle, everything got in my rucksack with no problem and it wasn’t heavy at all.

Guruprasad, Harish and Jen

It was still dark and very misty as we made our way to reception.  Trails in the gravel indicated that we were not the first and when we got to reception, some people were already waiting.  I gave my rucksack to Harish and then took a photo of him and Guruprasad with Jen.

We were still waiting for some people when we saw Bella and Steve emerging from the mist.  So we all had some more goodbye hugs and then got on the bus.  It all took some time, but at last everyone was present all the goodbyes had been said and everyone who needed to be on the bus was actually on the bus.  Then someone dashed up from reception and said that there was a query the bill on room 315.  None of us had stayed in room 315, in fact none of us had stayed on that side of the pool, but it took a while before Lukose managed to get him to understand that.  He told Guruprasad to hurry and then we were off.

At first the journey was fast, but then we got caught up in the traffic of outer Chennai.  At least it was a Sunday and not the rush hour.  One delay was caused by a car which had had a tyre blow out.  It was parked at a jaunty angle and stuck out into the road.

At long last, we arrived at the airport bang on 0715.  There was no time to lose.  Lukose said that we had to be there by then to ensure that our luggage got checked through all the way to Heathrow.  With a very short turnaround in Mumbai, we couldn’t afford to go through all the trouble of luggage carousels and multiple bag scans.  I was in a particular hurry because I wanted an aisle seat from Mumbai to Heathrow to avoid feeling trapped like before.  Jen and I grabbed our bags and dashed off.

Unfortunately, that meant that we missed the presentation to Guruprasad and Harish and saying goodbye to Lukose, which was a real shame.  It also meant that we missed the final baggage security scan, so after checking in and getting my aisle seat, I had to put my rucksack through the scan and then queue again to check that in.  Despite the delay, they said it would be checked straight through.  There was a very helpful man at the check in desk on my second visit.  He made sure that I had the necessary hand luggage tags for the security scan and an emigration form for Mumbai.

Jen and I were the last ones through security, so we missed saying goodbye to Sue and Martin who were off for another Explore tour in Northern India.  Jen had got particularly friendly with them during the trip.  I filled in the emigration form with Shona and Stewart and then went upstairs to sit with the others at the gate.  I chatted to a friendly Indian doctor, who said that she lived in a nice town in Gujarat, which was said to be the City of Flowers.

The flight to Mumbai set off a bit late, but made up time and arrived early.  I had a Southern Indian veggie breakfast, which wasn’t very nice at all.  But the coffee was good.

I was in the second to back row, so was the third person out the back door when we landed.  When the bus reached the terminal, we were directed to gate A.  The procedure wasn’t clear, but I noticed a desk with a sign saying that we needed to stop there to get tickets for the bus to the International Airport, so we didn’t have to go back that time.  Despite the board looking as if there were about 200 passengers ahead of us in the queue for the bus, we were waved through as soon as our boarding passes had been checked.  Then there was another hand baggage security check before we got on the bus, followed by a long wait on the bus until it was full.

In the International airport, we went through customs and immigration and then yet another security check.  Finally, we were through with enough time for shopping in duty free.  I found a decent clean toilet with friendly attendants, where I got changed into leggings and boots and put on a vest, ready for the UK.  When I reached the gate, we were already boarding.

The holiday continued until we reached Heathrow as all six of us single girls were sitting together.  Mike, Shona and Stewart, Kairan and Laurie were scattered elsewhere.

I think we all agreed that it had been a wonderful holiday.  There had been very few complaints, except the hotel in Mysore, and we had all got along well.  Lukose, Guruprasad and Harish had been brilliant and had made the journey go very smoothly.  Thank you to all of them.