Sign in Subscribe

Day 53 - Chauffered

Ben

• 3 min read
Day 53 - Chauffered

By contrast to yesterday, today was quite a bit more relaxed. After another nice breakfast we went down to the lobby where our bikes were loaded onto the roof of the waiting car and we were whisked away in an air conditioned box through the noise. It was hard to ignore the beggars carrying children and tapping on the windows. Even more than when we're on the bikes, we feel the chasm in our fortunes as the smartly dressed hotel staff wave us goodbye.

The plan for today is a very long drive to Pushkar to meet Emma's parents, made longer by diverting to a pharmacy to finally get those antimalarials we were after. We met a Scottish couple in the pharmacy who had also cycled from the UK to NZ, 30 years ago! We had a brief but very interesting discussion of the differences of touring then and now. For example, you could just put your bike on the plane back then - none of this box phaff, although we both had wars to avoid sadly.

When driving and talking on one phone just doesn't cut it! 😅

We stopped at a motorway services for an overpriced and very disappointing lunch, easily the worst of the trip, although I suppose that's to be expected.

Apparently more secure than they look, although I'm glad it didn't rain!

The journey was one of the quickest 11 hour drives that I've done. It was nice after two months of travelling to relax, catch up on blog writing (we both did like 3 hours for those last posts!) and admin while letting someone else do the thinking for a change. I don't even know what hotel we're going too! Thank you very much to Emma's parents for covering the treat! 😁

0:00
/0:03

I will admit that being bothered by noise from the driver watching reels (short form silly videos with obnoxious music) while driving along was not a problem I forsaw on the drive... He'd done a pretty impressive job of weaving through both motorway and Delhi traffic, but when we asked him to stop the noise the driving definitely got a lot more focused and aggressive!

Happily we survived, and arrived at a beautiful hotel just after Emma's folks and aunt and uncle. There's a camel festival happening in Pushkar this week, and with the lights still up from Divali, there's a great lively atmosphere to enjoy. There's people everywhere camping out on the streets and 30 to a van arriving all the time!

We were treated to dinner by Emma's folks at a restaurant right in the centre of the action near the holy river, which provided plenty to watch while we caught up. A great end to the day!

Of course the mandatory photoshoots first!

And then back home to try the first of our teas from yesterday's haul. We won't tell you how long it took to arrange this picture or get the light right (headtorch through my permanently yellow glasses), but we may be transitioning from casual bloggers to infiuencers 😬

Food spend today: 15.80 euros