Whilst we were on our tour of the Golden Triangle there were the obligatory stops at factories and some shops along the way. The one that I found the most interesting was the fabric factory. They showed us how some of their carpets were made and then showed us some examples.  The prices that they charged for these beautiful rugs worked out at several thousand of pounds less than they would have cost us back in the UK. Several people from our party bought some to be shipped back home, but I couldn’t remember the dimensions of our caravan so we had to give it a miss! I did however succumb to having a shirt made to measure, probably the one and only time I’ll be able to afford that luxury! Jane told me she felt sorry for the guy with the tape measure as he was struggling to get his arm around me!

They gave us a demonstration on how they do the block printing on the material.  It looked very time consuming but the end result was well worth the trouble!

We had a pit stop for the loos on the way back to Delhi, at a motorway service station, and we stumbled upon a wedding ceremony in full swing…………..

The guests looked wonderful and colourful dressed up in all their wedding finery!

Back on the road again and Sue piped up from the back seat that she knew that road…..I had to ask Jane what she meant!!!

Just trying to be arty!

Buddha course I’m the one on the right!

After what seemed like an epic coach trip we were back in Delhi.  Jane and I decided to go out for a walk to stretch our legs. We could see a park from the window in our hotel room so we went out to explore. It was a Sunday afternoon and the place was packed, and on every conceivable space there was a game of cricket going on.  I don’t think I have ever seen so many fiercely contested games going on in such a confined space!  We were the only white people in the whole of the park and did feel slightly conspicuous, but never unsafe or threatened (why would we?).  It was just that I was a little out of my comfort zone really!  The military jet in the background was ironically appropriate due to what had been going on in between India and Pakistan whilst we were there with the Air force plane that was shot down !

This is a photo of Mike and Sue, and Mike and Sue at Delhi airport.  It was so easy to remember their names!

Now you remember me telling you about Pakistan shooting down an Indian jet, well the knock on effect of that was that all the planes were delayed and we couldn’t now fly over Pakistan and would have to fly the long way round to get to Dubai to start the next leg of our trip.  More of that later…………

Dubai airport loading our suitcases on to the coach for our drive to Abu Dhabi.  At this stage of the journey we weren’t aware of the slight panic aboard our cruise ship wondering where their remaining 32 passengers were! (I like Sues new Indian top!)

We passed by the world’s tallest building as we headed to the port. The Burj Khalifa is 823 metres tall and looked great against the setting sun…………

We also passed this building under construction, it will be the Museum of the Future in the future!

If we had known (and if the driver had known) that everyone was waiting for us onboard the Celebrity Constellation we wouldn’t have taken quite so much time in the motorway services!

When we arrived at the cruise terminal ready for our embarkation we were all very surprised at the lack of people waiting to take our baggage and to check our paperwork.  The place was eerily quiet so we made our way to the embarkation gate and onto the dockside, where we were greeted by a member of crew who quickly took our passports, gave us our boarding cards and pointed us towards the one remaining gangplank where all our cases were being manhandled onboard.  As soon as the last of us was through the door the ropes were cast off and we were on our way………..time for a glass of wine to help us calm down!

And so the sun finally goes down on a rather long and rather hectic day, but at least we are safely on board!