Leaving India

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The couple of days we had in Delhi were predominantly spent in our room, Hero patiently attending me and waiting while I continued to recover in bed. Staying in Pahar Ganj was great, as everything we could possibly need was just downstairs and along the main street. Even managed to stay out of bed long enough to do a little Christmas shopping, though I paid for the efforts later that, and the following, day. And all too soon it was time to pack our bags ready for departure, though I would happily have stayed in bed for several more days.

Waking up at 00:30 is never really fun, and our taxi driver didn't seem too thrilled with being shaken from his car seat slumber an hour later to take us to the airport for our early flight. It took him a good few minutes to gain some level of consciousness (not quite enough to remember the first two times we told him what our destination was).

Our taxi ride was, nevertheless, thankfully uneventful. We spent most of our time watching the half-lidded eyes of our driver in the rear view mirror, ready to give him a shake if his frequent blinks turned into something a little longer. He lit cigarette after cigarette, but when he told us it was to keep him awake, we both very much preferred the smoky air to the alternative!

After a few close calls with gutters and another car, we came to a relief-inducing stop at the airport, swerving to miss a stationary elderly couple standing on the side of the road. With the journey achieved, I was hoping our driver would be able to have some more sleep, but scarily he said, "no madam, night job." Whether he survived the rest of the night without accident we'll never know, but that's part of his story, and ours took us high into the sky on our way back to London.

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