1. Because posts come out looking like the last one. Heh.
So. I have in my hot little email account a missive from Jain, my travel agent. It tells me all about my plans, and how much money she would like to have for it. So far it looks good, apart from only having 128 days travel insurance when I'll be away for between 180 and 240 days, and not having any - sorry, not having
no - booking for the ferry to the Isle of Man. Otherwise, my plans look like this:
26 Feb 07, 1420hrs Auckland Intl - Hong Kong Intl. Non-stop, 11hrs 25mins. Urgh. Then, after an hour and a half rattling around Hong Kong Airport, I go from Hong Kong Intl – Delhi (Indira Gandhi Intl) Non-stop, 6hrs 20mins.
In Delihi I stay two nights at the “Bajaj Indian Homestay”, which is not a homestay. I don’t know anything about this place yet except what is on the website; it just turned up in this email. It looks rather nice, and they will apparently feed me an ‘American Breakfast’ daily which should be good while I try to be not too adventuresome with food choices while I settle in, in deference to my belly…
On the 28th of February (Indian time) I catch the train from Delhi to Kolkata (Calcutta). On the advice of pretty much everything I’ve ever read about Indian train stuff, I’m going for the 1st class, air conditioned carriage which sets me back $200ish but decreases my risk of being woken by people trying to get to know me or my money better. It leaves at 5pm and arrives the next day at 10ish.
I then spend 9 nights at the... quirky... Fairlawn Hotel in Kolkata. They feed me American breakfast foods too. I hope this doesn’t mean those strange cereals I hear about… Oh, wait, they don’t eat those for breakfast anyway. Have a look at this page, and scroll down to read a review/description of the place (right hand column).
On the 8th of March I get the train back to Delhi, arriving at 10am-ish. From there I have one night’s pre-tour accomodation at the “Hotel Singh Palace” before embarking on my “Backroads of Rajasthan” tour with a company called Geckos for 17 nights. Check it out, I get to go camel-riding!
Then I’m back at the Bajaj for one night before flying British Airways from Delhi (Indira Gandhi Intl) at 0805 for 9-and-a-half hours to arrive in London, at Heathrow where I have a night at Contiki’s pre-tour accomodation (the Royal National Hotel) to get used to the time-zone change before spending the 28th of March until the 12th of May on my “Ultimate European” Contiki tour where I see all of Europe, right out to the Occidental and back, including a bit of Egypt.
Insert the Isle of Man TT here, and some aimless wandering which has yet to be decided (this means me visiting you, Alida, and possibly anyone else who is somewhere around the UK or the continent).
Coming home I go back through Hong Kong and (so far) Melbourne for Phillip Island (another motorbike race, duh). The date of my return is not set yet, because Jain can’t yet book that far in advance and I don’t know when the bike race is on. I will talk to her about keeping the home-time date open, I think. But, no matter what, I will be back for October the 1st, if not before, to get organised for 2008's study. If the Aussie GP is after the 1st I will do that in a seperate trip.
All this for a mere many-thousand dollars. Which leads me to one issue... how do you give someone that much money? My eftpos card won't let me make transactions that size... If anyone knows, leave me a comment, otherwise I will have to go to the bank and ask them. Feel free to comment anyway; let me know what you think of my plans, my tours, my fashion sense, my odour... whatever really.
^.^
