1. The beginning ........

My recent experience of setting sail across the rough seas of divorce have taught me that no two people sharing exactly the same experience will remember it in the same way. It all depends on your life experiences, how you see things and what you are interested in. I say this by way of a caveat, this blog is merely MY experience, to give anyone interested in a similar trip some sort of a taster, but it can’t convey the smells, the smiles, the kindness and the wonderment that is India!!

The first dilemma when travelling alone is the single supplement! I have travelled a lot and recently I have been visiting places in Europe and staying at hostels with up to 12 people sharing a mixed dormitory so I am not bothered about sharing but this holiday was a luxy treat for me .... What if the other person snored or spent ages in the bathroom??? In the end I decided to save my pennies and as luck would have it everyone else paid the supplement so I ended up having a room for myself anyway. That said, as it turned out there was no on the trip that I would not have been delighted to have shared with.

I am also a big believer in finding my own flights but despite an extensive search the flights provided by Wild Frontiers (WF) were good direct flights from LHR and far cheaper than anything I could find as they had booked them a year in advance. All the information arrived when needed and the visa came through in just a few days. The visa application was lengthy but straight forward - the only tricky bit was to reduce the photo to a tiny amount of information!

So that was everything sorted .... All packed up.... only 15kg max because of an internal flight (but if you take more the excess fees are not ruinous!!). The day of departure arrived. What could go wrong? Well, I got an Uber to the railway station but got caught in traffic. To speed things up I asked the driver to drop me at the back of the station, as it was only going to be a minute he parked at the bus stop and I jumped out to open the boot to retrieve my suitcase. The boot would not open. The driver got out but he had no more success and out of the corner of my eye I could see a lady traffic warden approaching. I took a deep breath, braced for the confrontation and being told that we were not allowed to stop there .... but ate my stereotypical thoughts when she offered to help!  Far more intelligently than either of us she suggested taking down the backseat to retrieve the luggage that way, Mr Uber was not impressed and insisted that luggage came out of the boot! With an air of authority Ms Warden completely ignored Mr Uber and continued her mission taking his car apart and just as we had the bag in sight the boot opened and with a sense of pride Mr Uber grabbed it and presented it with an air of triumph! My day had to improve!