Crazy Day

For some reason, leaving pushkar finally kicked my mind into gear.

And thus, everything finally started getting done.

In the space of a few hours in Delhi, yesterday, I took care of an amazing number of things.

Most importantly - while doing research on travel to the Andaman Islands, good luck visited me. Up until now, travel options have been: Extremely expensive flights (with foreigners paying almost double, at around $500 return), or a 3 day no frills boat journey for about $150.

However, starting March 1, Air Deccan, one of India's low cost airlines, will be flying to Port Blair in the Andamans. This happens to be exactly the day I wanted to go - and so I'm booked on their first flight out there, for the dirt cheap price of $120 return. I leave on March 1, and come back March 30th. The only problem, is that the flight leaves from Chennai - which is a long way from where I wanted to be....

Last night, I took the tibetian equivilant of the US chinatown express bus... linking the tibetian community in Delhi to Dharamsala. A 12 hour, no frills, no relaxation, no comfort bus journey.. bags flying everywhere in the middle of the night, bumps that caused you to fly momentarily. I decided this at the last minute, of course, and so I got the last ticket on the bus - right above the rear right wheel.

This morning, I arrived to Dharamsala exhausted - after failing to sleep a wink on the bus, followed the first tout that advertised a decent enough sounding room, and went straight to bed.

Oh, I also managed to pick up a lovely case of Delhi Belly, in the few hours I spent there... lovely.

When i woke up, I realized the room was actually very very nice. A balcony overlooking the mountains, a private very hot shower and western toilet, and a TV - well, they started running a wire to my room at 6AM, until I told them I could wait until the evening for it... all for 150 rupees.

This afternoon, I've done very little. I still feel exhausted from the back to back night bus journeys, but I did find a travel agent here, and booked my Bangkok ticket.

Again, using air deccan, I fly from chennai -> Bombay (25 bucks), and then from Bombay to Bangkok on March 31....

What happens after that, I'll figure out later.

For now, I just need to figure out how i'm going to get to Varanasi in a few weeks, and then later, how i'll get from Varanasi to Chennai (38 hours by train, ick).