Pachyderms & McCurry burgers

It felt a bit odd having a lie-in but I did my best to enjoy it as I'd soon be back to the daily grind. Breakfast was brought to us on a tray in our room, which was quite nice. Shame really that the toast had been made about 5 hours ago going on its solidity, which was itself outweighed by the near-frozen state of the butter.

Having just reread that sentence however, I have realised just how petty it sounds - this from the girl who used to be impressed if she had a log to sit on round the cooking fire! Moving on...at least there was plenty of hot tea.

After packing up our bags for what would be the last time, we headed down to reception to check-out and await our lift to the airport. Yesterday, CB had indicated that we wanted to get to the airport way too early so I didn't hold out much hope that our lift would be on time. To be honest, at this stage we wanted to hang out at the airport much more than spend any extra time at this hotel.

As predicted, our lift arrived 15mins later than scheduled but as we weren't short on time, it wasn't really a problem. We loaded our bags, waved goodbye to Delhi and I prepared myself to spend some serious rupees in the airport tat shops. Alas, I was to be disappointed. After gathering a variety of carved wooden pachyderms and extravagantly packaged Camellia sinensis leaves in the duty-free shop, we found we could not pay in the country's own currency! In the end, we managed to track down some of the most tasteful tat ever to come out of China in the airport branch of WHSmiths. I'm sure my work colleagues all appreciate their carefully chosen gifts.

Perhaps we could have a last taste of authentic Indian food before flying home? Sadly, unless a McCurry burger or Maharaja Mac fitted that bill, we were going to be disappointed again.

Hoorah for premium economy though - it makes even going home nice. We settled in our seats, put our feet up and revelled in our glasses of bucks fizz. With happy thoughts of tigers and our impending after-dinner drinks, we began planning our next trip. Perhaps something a little more relaxed this time?