Back in Delhi (By Justyna)

Well, we have arrived back in extremely hot Delhi. The monsoon has definitely not come and the air is scalding hot, dusty, dirty, dry. there are water and electricity shortages and although we are this time placed in a better hotel than previously, with working air con, being back in crazy Delhi really hit us hard. the plan was to stay overnight and the next day take a night train to Udaipur in Rajastan and spend the remaining 5 days around the state of Rajastan (Udaipur, maybe Pushkar or Jaipur etc) then go to Agra on way back and finally fly home. However to our amazement, there are not trains available for the next week. everything has been sold out! (apart from the unseated classes). So our plans have fallen through. we looked at other options, including having a driver, but it all sounded like way too much of a headache, in this heat, worrying about having to feed and water the driver. we also looked at buses but neither of us were particularly happy at the prospect of 12 - 17 hour bus rides into the unexpected etc. So both very miserable, over a lovely dinner, we discussed other options. we only have 5 days, we could fly but again the flights were expensive; we could go somewhere else in India but were not sure about where etc. And having discussed the past three weeks, with all our adventures, we have decided to go home early. Both of us have really enjoyed our travels, but we are quite tired of moving around, the stress of it all etc and we were really pushing the boundaries, basically flying back to Tokyo for one night and then straight onto another flight to the US. So we changed our flight back and we are going home tomorrow, which will give us 4 days to relax in Shinchi. Although it is a shame to finish early, I think we have done so much and next time we will give just India the proper time she deserves, and plan ahead during busy holiday periods for trains and things. Enough adventures, homeward bound!