Delhi - November 14th

Today we leave Goa for Delhi.  We have cheated slightly by booking ourselves a flight from Goa airport instead of our original plan, taking a train.  The main reason for this is that it gives us an extra day on the beach (the flight is 2½ hours instead of 26 hours on the train), and thanks to low cost airlines it only costs us about £25 more each.

The relatively late departure time of 15:00 allows us a leisurely checkout, or so we think until the credit card reader at our hotel breaks down and we have to dash to an ATM to get enough cash.  This involves a trip to Madrem village, which we discover is actually bigger than what we found, apparently us explorers never bothered to see what is around the next corner.  As we are getting a taxi it doesn’t leave us under time pressure.

Goa airport is small but pretty calm (compared to train stations) and has a fair number of flights to Delhi.  Luckily we booked Indigo, not Kingfisher, who suddenly are in financial difficulties and are cancelling flights.  The flight is very good and punctual, but there is one major annoyance, the men using their phones, even during take-off.  We were both uneasy with this, but the stewardesses seem to be too cowed to chastise the men on the plane.  There are no male staff (the advert in the inflight magazine looking for staff is only looking for women cabin crew), and our suspicions are deepened by the fact that they tell Dorota to shut her Kindle at landing time while leaving the guy beside us listening to music on his phone, and one behind playing his music out loud.

After landing we get picked up by our hotel, except their car broke down so we get met by one of their staff and have to get a taxi back.  This taxi looks as old as I am and the engine cuts out about 25 times in an journey of less than one hour.  It’s quite annoying to us, and to the hotel guide.  When we get to our hotel we are assaulted by a barrage of neon signs, and realise that we are not in quiet India anymore.  Our hotel is fine, except for the hard sell they try to do on us to take their organised trips, but we resist.