Just as we were settling our bill this morning I found a small bar/lounge area I'd missed previously (not like me to miss a bar as David would say). I rather liked the horse statue on the bar but sadly it was too large to fit in my shoulder bag (only joking, of course I wouldn't steal anything).
I finally managed to get a few photos of the little birds that have been teasing me, flying in and out of the tree outside our balcony - they are very active and very small (wren sized) and they tend to stay quite deep in the foliage. I now have to find out what they are - judging by the beaks they are fly/insect catchers
This area, on the outskirts of Jodhpur is really lush and pretty. Its an affluent area and the local house-owners are keen to show off their status. We walked out to a local restaurant last night and commented on how many brass plaques there are outside the gates of the larger houses stating the name and status of the owner. Obviously we could only read the ones written in English but most of those had 'BOSS' somewhere in the job designation. Pays to advertise I suppose!
We travelled by Tuk Tuk to Jodhpur airport. The walls either side of the road approaching the airport were painted with Indian scenes and were quite beautiful. Sadly there was a barrier in the centre of the road which obscured these from my limited view so this was the best shot I could get. Doing top Tuk Tuk speed (probably around 20mph) we got to the airport in 10 minutes.
The airport was built at the instigation of Umaid Singh (same guy who built the palace mentioned in yesterday's post). Its essentially a military airport so once we taxied out from the commercial gate area we passed by lots of military planes/vehicles/personnel/hangars etc .... so unusual as normally the public are banned from getting this close to military areas.
We were about 1 hour late taking off which is OK as we have a lengthy stop-over at Mumbai. I did revert to Grumpy Old Woman mode on board though. The Indian guy in front of me was a bit of a man mountain (quite unusual really as most Indians are quite petite). Immediately on sitting in front of me he slammed his seat back and then proceeded to toss and turn and bounce the seat around. It too 4 hard slams of my tray table into his chair-back before he stopped but as soon as he'd eaten his lunch (and before I'd eaten mine) he once again started rocking back and forth in his seat so I couldn't stand my bottled water up and had to pull my tray table right back close to me in order to eat. I leant forward and politely asked him to sit still and he was slightly rude .... so I got the last word and thankfully he was quite docile after that! Poor David went a little white round the gills wondering what I was going to do/say I think ... Memsahib isn't to be crossed when travelling.
I do think Ryanair, Easyjet and the short haul carriers in Europe have the right idea in making the seats non-reclining for short haul flights. Surely anyone can manage to sit upright for 90 mins (which is all this flight was).
You can always rely on Indian bureacracy to keep you amused when you've plenty of time and no worries about catching connections.
Get to airport and show passport and printed boarding pass to enter - OK. Go 20 yards further and scan hold luggage which is then sealed. Proceed to Security and show boarding passes - get these exchanged for official boarding passes, check in hold luggage (previously scnaned) have hand luggage scanned and affix official travel labels to everything that is travelling with you (I almost tied one to David).
Pass through this Security area to next room where you show boarding passes and passports again and have hand luggage scanned yet again (in case you've collected anything else in the empty room you've just traversed)
Separate into Men/Women areas for next luggage and body scan. Everybody goes through personal scanner although ladies have curtains around the cubicle to preserve modesty - a real travesty really as the 2 girls doing the scanning were so busy holding a conversation they didn't look at me once whilst waving the hand-held scanner around. Get boarding pass stamped twice then you're through. Until you get to the Gate. Then your passport and boarding pass are checked again. Walk 300 yards down enclosed corridor to the plane entrance and your boarding pass is scrutinised yet again ...
but as we've heard many a time, the Brits introduced most of the red tape to this country and the indians have adopted/adapted it to suit their own needs!
The irony is that David had got through all this with a bottle of hand-gel in his shirt pocket (forgot to take it out) and my bag of 'wet stuff' was still in my shoulder bag - spare toothpaste, handgel etc., so the checks are useless really.
All is well now ..... we've managed the 'domestic to domestic' transit experience and spotted this
well it would be churlish to pass up such an obvious invitation wouldn't it? David suggested a 'mocktail' but I much preferred an Old Monk and Pepsi which went down rather well although one rum and coke and a large beer was an eye watering rupees 1500 (around £15.50).
Our flight to Cochin was 35 mins late taking off (congestion at Mumbai) but we eventually got to our hotel which is nice enough. Its an airport hotel but not too large and we've got a dining/lounge area and decent size bedroom although we're leaving at 8am in the morning. We just had a snacky meal tonight and taking advantage of the free wifi to catch up.
The change in temperature will take a bit of getting used to. In the North the morning and evening temperatures meant we had to wear fleecies/light jackets and long trousers although the day temps were really nice, mid 20s and dry heat. We arrived around 8pm in Cochin to 30degrees humid heat and wilted immediately.
Joshy, our driver from previous years, is meeting us in the morning for the start of our Southern tour which starts with a 7 hour drive. There will be plenty of stops along the way for cups of chai and hopefully some photo opportunities but probably no blog post tomorrow.
I finally managed to get a few photos of the little birds that have been teasing me, flying in and out of the tree outside our balcony - they are very active and very small (wren sized) and they tend to stay quite deep in the foliage. I now have to find out what they are - judging by the beaks they are fly/insect catchers
This area, on the outskirts of Jodhpur is really lush and pretty. Its an affluent area and the local house-owners are keen to show off their status. We walked out to a local restaurant last night and commented on how many brass plaques there are outside the gates of the larger houses stating the name and status of the owner. Obviously we could only read the ones written in English but most of those had 'BOSS' somewhere in the job designation. Pays to advertise I suppose!
We travelled by Tuk Tuk to Jodhpur airport. The walls either side of the road approaching the airport were painted with Indian scenes and were quite beautiful. Sadly there was a barrier in the centre of the road which obscured these from my limited view so this was the best shot I could get. Doing top Tuk Tuk speed (probably around 20mph) we got to the airport in 10 minutes.
The airport was built at the instigation of Umaid Singh (same guy who built the palace mentioned in yesterday's post). Its essentially a military airport so once we taxied out from the commercial gate area we passed by lots of military planes/vehicles/personnel/hangars etc .... so unusual as normally the public are banned from getting this close to military areas.
We were about 1 hour late taking off which is OK as we have a lengthy stop-over at Mumbai. I did revert to Grumpy Old Woman mode on board though. The Indian guy in front of me was a bit of a man mountain (quite unusual really as most Indians are quite petite). Immediately on sitting in front of me he slammed his seat back and then proceeded to toss and turn and bounce the seat around. It too 4 hard slams of my tray table into his chair-back before he stopped but as soon as he'd eaten his lunch (and before I'd eaten mine) he once again started rocking back and forth in his seat so I couldn't stand my bottled water up and had to pull my tray table right back close to me in order to eat. I leant forward and politely asked him to sit still and he was slightly rude .... so I got the last word and thankfully he was quite docile after that! Poor David went a little white round the gills wondering what I was going to do/say I think ... Memsahib isn't to be crossed when travelling.
I do think Ryanair, Easyjet and the short haul carriers in Europe have the right idea in making the seats non-reclining for short haul flights. Surely anyone can manage to sit upright for 90 mins (which is all this flight was).
You can always rely on Indian bureacracy to keep you amused when you've plenty of time and no worries about catching connections.
Get to airport and show passport and printed boarding pass to enter - OK. Go 20 yards further and scan hold luggage which is then sealed. Proceed to Security and show boarding passes - get these exchanged for official boarding passes, check in hold luggage (previously scnaned) have hand luggage scanned and affix official travel labels to everything that is travelling with you (I almost tied one to David).
Pass through this Security area to next room where you show boarding passes and passports again and have hand luggage scanned yet again (in case you've collected anything else in the empty room you've just traversed)
Separate into Men/Women areas for next luggage and body scan. Everybody goes through personal scanner although ladies have curtains around the cubicle to preserve modesty - a real travesty really as the 2 girls doing the scanning were so busy holding a conversation they didn't look at me once whilst waving the hand-held scanner around. Get boarding pass stamped twice then you're through. Until you get to the Gate. Then your passport and boarding pass are checked again. Walk 300 yards down enclosed corridor to the plane entrance and your boarding pass is scrutinised yet again ...
but as we've heard many a time, the Brits introduced most of the red tape to this country and the indians have adopted/adapted it to suit their own needs!
The irony is that David had got through all this with a bottle of hand-gel in his shirt pocket (forgot to take it out) and my bag of 'wet stuff' was still in my shoulder bag - spare toothpaste, handgel etc., so the checks are useless really.
All is well now ..... we've managed the 'domestic to domestic' transit experience and spotted this
well it would be churlish to pass up such an obvious invitation wouldn't it? David suggested a 'mocktail' but I much preferred an Old Monk and Pepsi which went down rather well although one rum and coke and a large beer was an eye watering rupees 1500 (around £15.50).
Our flight to Cochin was 35 mins late taking off (congestion at Mumbai) but we eventually got to our hotel which is nice enough. Its an airport hotel but not too large and we've got a dining/lounge area and decent size bedroom although we're leaving at 8am in the morning. We just had a snacky meal tonight and taking advantage of the free wifi to catch up.
The change in temperature will take a bit of getting used to. In the North the morning and evening temperatures meant we had to wear fleecies/light jackets and long trousers although the day temps were really nice, mid 20s and dry heat. We arrived around 8pm in Cochin to 30degrees humid heat and wilted immediately.
Joshy, our driver from previous years, is meeting us in the morning for the start of our Southern tour which starts with a 7 hour drive. There will be plenty of stops along the way for cups of chai and hopefully some photo opportunities but probably no blog post tomorrow.
