Saturday 9th November 11:30 (happy birthday mum!)….I am on a plane so a bit of time to catch up on this.

Shall continue from where I left the last post….

At 4am we arrived at Jaipur bus stop. This was the bus stop that when we arrived a few days ago going the other way there were people running alongside the bus as we were pulling in, look for potential customers/business. As it was so early in the morning there were not many of these guys this time, although the bus station was surprisingly busy considering it was 4am.

I didn't get any sleep on that previous bus and was really knackered, so we had a few coffees from the same dude we had got coffee off and chatted to (getting the distance to train station) when we were here the other day.

6am didn't come around quickly, and this was no place to have a sleep that's for sure.

So we eventually got the bus and I fell asleep even before we left.

We stopped around 8am for a break and people to get off, where we had puri with aloo sabzi, a potato type curry, for breakfast. I wasn't even hungry but when I came back from the toilet Piyush was holding two trays of it, so I tried a bit and it was really good….ending up eating the whole thing (there were 4).

Got back on the bus and finished the bus journey, driven by the worst driver swaying us left to right, honking and breaking/accelerating for no reason.

We got off and Romesh, an old school friend of Piyush (somehow he reminded me of an Asian version of Pete Dev) and picked us up in his car with his 4 year old daughter. It was 11 or 12:00 I think.

This was outside of Delhi, and we drove into Delhi to go to the Arunachal commissioner to get my permit which took at least an hour to get to. After some time of this other lady trying to find it and us paying for the permit ($50 USD) we were done. Coincidentally there were signs up for a North East Festival going on in Delhi the same and following day. Great, as north east India is basically what this whole trip is really about.

My SIM card also finally became activated at this time.

We drove back out of Delhi to Gurgaon where Romesh and his family lived and we were staying for the night. He lives in the area where there are a lot of offices and apartments being built and the area is booming from what is the upcoming middle class filling the space between the long-time rich/poor divide. Here is where all the main global IT companies are (blackberry office was here).

At Romesh's apartment we had a couple of drinks, cooked a pork dish which was nice, chatted, and I heard many stories of when Piyush and Romesh lived together in Delhi after studying and all the mad stuff they got up to. Back then Gurgaon was a waste land and very unsafe. We also booked our flight for the next day to Bagdogra in Sikkim.

A bit later Piyush and I got a train (small new one, more of a commuting type train to this area) back to the centre of Delhi to go to the North East Festival. Before we got there we went to Dilli Haat where there are food and goods stands representing each state and area in India and their own foods/products. We briefly met some friends of Piyush's, Poonam again, Jimmy and Dinku and some others. Dinku is coming with us for most of the rest of the trip to the north east.

We went on to the festival, which was a bit further than we thought when getting off the tuktuk, but actually gave me a chance to walk down what is the main area of Delhi for all the parliament buildings and top officials (who get no respect from the normal people due to all the corruption they are involved in and the state they live everyone else in). This area looked clean and had armed security everywhere.

Later some officials drove past and their entire route on the roads were quickly shut down and sectioned off, to which the tuktuk driver was calling them thieves etc.

Got to the festival where there was Mami Varte (lady from Mizoram in the north east) was singing. Piyush recognised her voice in the distance before we even got there. Here we listened to some music and wandered around. Piyush was pretty keen to leave when they started turning a bit Bollywood (most north east people hate Bollywood…if not all things Indian, and generally don't consider themselves Indian). We couldn't find a tuktuk but managed to get on one some other younger guys were on, who were also from Manipur (where Piyush is from) and also said they left because it started turning Bollywood style.

We were going to go back so that it wasn't too late (probably 9pm by now), but eventually met back up with Piyush's mates from earlier back at Poonams places. Where they were having a bit of a party (just like a western party with all the expected past times…). Although I wasn't keen to go there as we had a long journey back to Gurgaon (Piyush had to smooth over some issue between him and Poonam which is why we went), I actually had a really great laugh chatting to Jimmy and other people who were coming and going.

Ended up getting a taxi back to Gurgaon and went to bed almost immediately. After the night before on the buses and barely any sleep I was so damn tired, plus we had to get up the next day (today) for the flight to Bagdogra.

Today the plan was to meet Dinku at the airport and fly to Bagdogra where we will get a couple of buses (should take around 4 hours) to Gangtok…..probably much easier for you to google these place rather than me try to explain where they are.

So before we left Romesh and family, we looked for places to stay in Gangtok, made our list of 3 places and called a taxi. Packed our stuff, said goodbye, and head for Delhi domestic airport.

I am now sitting on the plane with Piyush and Dinku, hoping to get a glimpse of Mount Everest to the west.

It's 13:05.