Agra India Part 2 of our 10 day trip in India

Agra India Part 2 of our 10 day trip in India

7am breakfast this morning as our driver was meeting us at 8am for our drive to Agra, the drive to Agra took just over 4 hours from Delhi and it’s along a very good 3 lane road, but the road doesn’t present a lot to see, as the road is nearly dead straight for a high percentage of the journey, but occasionally it does pass around some villages, but it’s mainly farm land to see, we did stop for a comfort break and coffee midway.

On reaching Agra our first stop was to check in at our hotel. Our driver unknown to us made a little mistake here as he pulled into the sister hotel of the one we should have been staying at by mistake, the sister hotel was much more up market as it’s set in about 2 acres. We both looked at each other and went this isn’t our hotel, but hey maybe they’ve changed it. On arrival at the reception we were greeted with flower lei’s as today it’s Diwali, which is the festival of lights and one of the most important events in the Hindu calendar, we were given welcome drinks and directed to the reception desk, as we were sitting there we look at our driver and we sensed he'd made a mistake, we smile, laugh and go this isn’t our hotel is it, no your hotels across the road.

New Delhi India Part 1 of our 10 day trip in India

New Delhi Part 1 of our 10 day trip in India

We arrived late evening on a Tuesday at New Delhi International airport on our air Indigo flight, clearing passport control quickly and no issues with our visas, we grabbed the luggage and was outside the terminal within the hour and we soon spotted by our tour company rep.

Blimey the drive to our hotel was an eye opener, on first impressions it’s bonkers on the New Delhi roads it’s soooo busy, when the traffic slows they make what is a 3 lane road into 5 lanes, with very little room between the sides of the vehicles, they don’t stop at roundabouts they just continue out onto them, and in places along the road if they really can’t be bothered to wait they just travel the wrong way against the flow of the traffic and if you thought our roads were bad, in some places the roads suddenly just go into a rutted dust track.

Bangkok Thailand October 2024

Bangkok Thailand

We arrived in Bangkok yesterday at 8am after an overnight flight from Qatar. This time we had already pre-booked a taxi and it was there waiting with our name at arrivals, it only cost £14 and worked perfectly.

After dropping our bags at the hotel, we were straight out into exploring as there were few temples nearby and The Chao Phraya river was only a short walk away.

It was again quite hot and by midday it was 35 degs, so we zig zagged our way through the streets and markets catching as much shade as we could on our way towards the river boat stop to catch a boat to Wat Arun temple. These boats are the main transport system in Bangkok, effectively buses.

Just before sunset we went to a roof top bar called Eagles nest to watch the sunset over Wat Arun

Doha Qatar October 2024

Doha in Qatar

Flying out from Heathrow was something we have not done for the best part of 40 years, as we normally choose Stansted or Gatwick, but with our fight being with Qatar airlines it was now time to revisit Heathrow. The Qatar airlines check-in all went smoothly and the flight itself we couldn’t fault it, fantastic service and flying on an A380 was also a first for us.

The A380 is a plane I had wanted to fly on for many years, as I had the pleasure of working on it in the early stages of its development, machining several large parts for the undercarriage for the pre flight prototype and then the first flying development planes.