From Ahmeda-Bad To Worse

ok .. so just when the travelling side of things felt like it couldn't get any tougher came the journey to the wedding !!!

Ironically this should have been relatively straightforward as we had been nice and organised and it was a straightforward trip ... a 1 hour flight from delhi to Ahmedabad where a car had been arranged to pick us up and drive us the 80km or so to our hotel in Vadodara for the wedding. First of all Delhi airport Domestic terminal itself was a nightmare ... despite having booked our tickets we had to pick up a confirmation from the Airline Counter where two women were being mobbed by about 40 Indians trying to buy tickets with no concept whatsoever of queueing and it seemed the only way to get anything done was to push past people and shout louder ... which with much prompting from Kate I managed. Once through we were astonished at the chaos in the departure gates ... we had a 22:20 flight which was due to board at 21:55 but with every other flight on the board showing as delayed I thought i'd check 5 mins before boarding that we really were on time.

Astonishingly enough I was told that the plane should be landing in 10-15 minutes and that everything was on time ... I immediately sensed a flaw in their planning !! When 22:20 came and the board was still showing 'on time' while we waited in the departure gate my confusion grew ... but we weren'tactually too late and the flight itself was fine.

Once we got to Ahmedabad airport i decided to check if our car was there and leave Kate and Toby with the luggage by the pre-paid taxi counter in case we needed one .. my 6th sense was right as no-one was waiting ... and in the meantime Kate - with Toby asleep on her back - was accused of stealing all the luggage (no idea why !!!)

We hopped in what seemed a reasonable taxi and headed off - phoning the hotel to check that at least our reservation was o.k - and settled back to sleep on the journey. Well that was a nice idea ... until about 55 km from vadodara and at 01:45 in the morning we heard a clunk and our car rolled into the hard shoulder.

The taxi driver spoke no English at all but his sign language to push was pretty clear ! So with toby asleep on Kate and a pitch black indian road the driver and I tried to push-start the car along the hard shoulder !! No Luck !!!

Cue lots of phone calls from the driver ... no communication with us ... and eventually much trying to flag down of other cars. After about 20 minutes one kindly soul stopped ... there was much gesturing and our bags began to be transferred to their car. We were fearing some awful scam at this point but didn't have many options ... but with two of them already in the car and the boot full .. Kate and I clambered into the back seat with Two Large Rucksacks, two small Rucksacks, one holdall and a pram ... all while keeping Toby asleep and seemed just about set - until our original driver motioned that he was getting in with us. !

We had little idea what was going on but the sign Vadodara 5 km cheered us up ... until the car pulled straight into a truck stop at the side of the road !! Our assumption is that these people weren't actually going into vadodara and this was as far as our lift went .. but fortunately within 5 minutes a third car arrived into which we were transferred (in comparative comfort) and driven to the hotel.

Being shunted from car to car with no idea why as people talk all around you is an extremely scary experience and we felt pretty vulnerable ... the only positive was that we kept hearing our hotel name being bandied about in inqusitive manner so we were pretty sure people were talking about how to get there and we were not being taken anywhere else !

We did eventually get there ... and had to laugh as the driver checked with the doorman as to whether we had a reservation or not as if not he was entitled to claim some commission for getting us there. In all the transferring all we lsot was Tobys cup .. a pretty good result !!

Ironically this was one of the first times that we had everything organised in advance and really couldn't balme ourselves (unlike the train) ... but we arrived at the hotel at about 04:30 absolutely shattered and with the joy of travelling beginning to ebb away !!!!

Fortunately I am writing this two days later (after two amazing days of wedding celebrations and a nice hotel - i'll let Kate write about that later) and things are looking up !! We have booked flights to Goa tomorrow for some time on the beach and to regroup and are ready for the next lg of the adventure.

wishing everyone an amazing xmas and loads of love to all

M