The last 48 hours are a bit of a blur but I'm going to attempt to put down the jist of what's being going on. We left Pushkar on Wednesday lunchtime, catching the 3:50pm train out of Ajmer for a seven hour journey back to Delhi. I was sad to leave Pushkar, especially as we met some great people during our last couple of days (you know who you are!) but I was looking forward to another night in Delhi. I don't know if it's because I'm getting used to the trains out here or because I'm now heavily invested in Midnight's Children but the seven hours (complete with lunch and three course dinner all included in the fare) flew by and all of a sudden we were back at New Delhi station, thrown back into the chaos that is Delhi at 11 o clock at night. We had plans to meet Nathan at My Bar so with some good old fashioned 'please hurry the hell up and give us our bags and the keys to our room and don't make us sign here here here and everywhere when we're only here for one bloody night' we got ourselves checked back into the Vivek hotel and on our way to My Bar in less then twenty minutes. I should explain at this point that after seven days in the no alcohol environment of Pushkar, both dad and I were ready for proper drink so Royal Stag whiskey was ordered, Nathan and his mate Shivshankar arrived and a fab few hours were had in My Bar until last orders were called. I at this point decided that ordering another eight double whiskeys for dad and I was the way forward (no idea what got into me!), we drank our drinks and were out on the street just after 1am. Now the sensible thing to do at this point would be to say our goodbyes, return to the hotel and get a good nights sleep before our flight the next morning. Obviously that is NOT what we chose to do. An invitation back to Shiv's house for a bottle of Glenfiddich was graciously accepted and the four of us piled into his car and set off across the city to his parents house - not unlike our very first night in Delhi thinking about it! Now Shiv's parents live in a particularly nice part of Delhi in a particularly lovely house so sitting on chairs in the middle of a huge lawn drinking Glenfiddich and talking about god knows what at two in the morning was particularly surreal. Jolly good fun though!

By 3am, dad was fast asleep so the offer of a guest house for the night was a huge relief on my part (getting home in the middle of the night with an unconscious father would be hard even if I knew my way around the city I was in!) so we tucked dad up into bed and called it a night. I was woken by a text from dad at 6:15am saying: "Where are you? I'm back at hotel, pissed xxxx" to which I sleepily replied, "You're not at the hotel, we're at Shiv's place I'm in the room next door. He's going to drive us home at 8am. That ok? We're in Delhi still! xx". His response really made me wake up: "Sorry I'm pissed. In our hotel room definitely, don't know where you are. Come back if poss. Phone on charge now so ring xxx". I actually got up at this point, headed for his room and found it completely empty, both doors to the guest house open and no dad to be seen. Looking around I then realised what I hadn't when we arrived in the dark a few hours earlier. We were staying in a walled, guarded estate so the reality of dad 'escaping' from this place and somehow managing to make it all the way back across Delhi in the state he was in all the more incomprehensible. As I was supposed to be re-packing and leaving for the airport in 5 hours I'll admit that I panicked at this point. Nathan was NO HELP WHATSOEVER in his comatose state, first suggesting that facebook could fix it and then that perhaps coffee would solve the dilemma, I should just "wander into the main house and ask someone, preferably not Shiv's parents though if I could manage it". I should point out that he didn't even open his eyes to make these suggestions so I'm pretty certain he thought he was dreaming. Eventually I managed to track Shiv down and he drove me back across town to the hotel, a true knight in shining armour. Getting the third degree from the three guys behind reception wasn't much fun: "Where have you been? Your father has been looking everywhere for you! He said you were lost!" Thanks dad. Got to the room and found dad (thankfully sleeping where he'd suggested via text) wrapped up in a blanket that I immediately recognised from Shiv's guest house the night before. I still couldn't put all the pieces of the puzzle together in my mind and waking dad didn't really fill in many of the gaps. He remembered waking up, not knowing where he was, how he came to be there, where I was or how on earth to get out. He remembered a guard not being keen on letting him out of the compound but he obviously managed it, he doesn't know how he got back to the hotel and he didn't know why he'd done all of this wrapped in a blanket from the room he'd woken up in. Basically, he was a TOTAL NIGHTMARE. A caped crusader drunkenly stumbling all over Delhi - credit where it's due though, he did manage to get home! Apparently it was all my fault anyway for ordering the eight double whiskeys so there we go!

I'm sure you can envisage that packing up, trying to eat some breakfast and taxi-ing our way to the airport was not the best (or easiest!) way to spend the morning after such a heavy night. especially as dad literally kept falling over when standing perfectly still. He's covered in scratches and scrapes now, it's hilarious! I took on the role of parent/supervisor and got us there whilst feeling horrendous myself but it all went well, we made it to the plane and just two hours later landed in Goa - my home for the next couple of months and a well deserved place of rest and recuperation after the madness of the last few weeks.

We met my friend Nev (from way back when at college) and his mate Ash at the airport - they've been travelling around India for the last few weeks and are ending their trip with a few days in Goa. We got them settled at their hotel, had a few beers on my dad's terrace (to clarify, they had drinks, Tor and Mohamed had drinks, dad had drinks, I did not! Detox was definitely necessary at this point!) and then we all headed back to Tor and Mo's new house in Arpora for a yummy dinner and a night of chilling out that was desperately required. I've had a fantastic few weeks travelling with dad but after that last night in Delhi I honestly need a 'holiday', at least I'm in the perfect place for that!

And if you're wondering what happened to the 'stolen' blanket that dad wore as some kind of cape whilst running around Delhi - I left it at reception with a note for Nathan to collect it. The things I have to do for my dad!