A wee parting pic from Kovalum all over India people either played or watched cricket or did both, this was on Kovalum beach at around 5.0pm on Monday. The other pic is of the men who sit all day every day rain or shine painting the pictures you see behind them with incredible detail. I have bought a number of small paintings on silk back with me which I shall frame up and sell to raise money for the Trust and my return visit!!!

Well I'm safely back home after the experience of a life time. If you are unfortunate enough to know me, you may wish to leave the country for a while until I stop talking. All went well on the flights home, the only delay was on the Edinburgh London leg which was 20 minutes late leaving Heathrow, but made good time on the actual flight. Quite a nice wee ploughman's cheddar salad on the flight too... I turned down the smoked mackerel option which has never been a favourite of mine. I have to say though that the BA meal did not quite match up to the 'tasty tantaliser' served an hour before landing by Qatar. We had had two other meals, this was just a wee snack... see pic.

I thought you might like to see the pic from Doha airport, of the parking area, where else but the middle east would you find a lane purely for limousines. It was so hot there though (outside not indoors A/C). Much hotter and drier than India and much less green, everything seemed to be very dusty too as you can see on the car in the lower left corner of one pic. I had a wonderful HOT shower in Qatar, I think they thought I had taken up residence I was in for so long.I slept most of the way back to the UK. I had not really slept since Sunday night in Kovalum. Monday night although I went to bed around 10.00am I only had short naps as I had to be up at 1.30am for my 2.00am taxi to the airport. my flight was at 5.00am and lasted around 4 hours, but including take off, landing and being fed breakfast, there was only a couple of hours sleeping time available. I then had 5 hours in Qatar which was nice and relaxing, a lovely restaurant with free food and drink, showers as mentioned, internet access and comfortable seating/sleeping space too. From Qatar, the flight was around 7 hours to London, again very comfortable and I just ate and slept, there was no view from the windows until over Europe, as there was a lot of cloud below us. It was raining in London and in spite of concerns they managed to transfer my bags from the Qatar flight to terminal 5 and my Edinburgh flight on time, I had just around 2 hours at Heathrow. Couldn't bring myself to buy a £2 cup of coffee and made do with a£1.30 bottle of water although that about broke my heart. Don't expect to be fed Chez Mair until I get to grips with these prices a bit.
I got to Edinburgh and picked up my bags and then had to run the gamut of about 10 customs officers, a lady beckoned me to the side and my heart sank as she looked at my 3 bags and hand luggage, 'Are these all your bags?' she said! 'Can you step over here for a moment please? Where did your journey start?'. I replied India and explained my 6 month stay and what I had been doing trembling all the while, I had nothing I shouldn't just couldn't face unpacking everything! 'Do you have ID' she asked. I produced my passport. 'Have you any alcohol or tobacco?' When I said no, she smiled and said, 'Is someone picking you up? Welcome home!' I made my way to the exit as sedately as I could with an overloaded wobbly wheeled trolley and met Jon who had just arrived. He brought me home, we had a quick cup of tea and then I was back in my own house.
Big adventure over...... for now!
I will continue over the next while, to put up some of my favourite pictures which never made it to the blog before, along with some short (perhaps) anecdotes, this will probably gradually tail off, but allows me to keep up the nostalgia for the time being!