D112 -- Hot ride out of India

Today was a big travel day for us, and so of course it was bound to be another mad rush as we tried to get everything done before leaving. We spent the morning doing some last-minute shopping, and then met our driver at noon at the hotel. We had booked a flight out of Ahmdebad, 150 miles south of Udaipur, and arranged for a car to drive us all the way to the airport. We could have flown out of Udaipur, but it would have cost us an extra $100. We had made sure to get a car with air conditioning, but about 20 minutes into our 5 hour drive, we realized the a/c was not working. The temperature was 103 out and it was in the middle of the day. The ride was horrible and made me think of a line from the movie Fools Rush In -- "The white people are melting out here! " I could not wait to get out of that car. And of course it didn't help that there were often cars driving on the wrong side of the road coming straight at us.


Luckily, the rest of the trip went really smoothly. We flew to Bombay and then caught our British Airways flight to London. Our nine hour flight left at 3 in the morning, and it ended up being one of the most enjoyable flights we've had, thanks entirely to the flat bed seats. I don't think either one of us has ever slept so well on an airplane.

As you may have gathered, we decided to nix our original plan to go to Nepal for some trekking in the Himalayas. You've probably seen in the news that there has been a lot of instability in Nepal recently, especially in Kathmandu, where there were riots and protests against the government. We figured that it would be too risky to go, plus we already had the chance to do a lot of trekking in New Zealand and Argentina. So we decided to spend a few more days in Spain instead.

Here are some shots from the road during our last ride in India.

- Tom