Many many hours

Bhopal was brilliant. I love how green it is - social forestry is at work I am assured. I will let the pictures tell you about our day out on Monday. 

Then on Tuesday we spent the morning with my grandmother, ate hot mattar kachoris (delicious!) and drove through Van (pronounced 'vun' not vaaan) Vihar on our way to the airport. Van Vihar is a semi open zoo by the giant 300sq km lake - a forested area with a smith driving road through it. Neat, clean and polythene bag free, policed by a large contingent and with a range of big and small animals, it's one of the loveliest Indian zoos I have seen. Saw a giant beautiful tiger - the best fed beast I have ever seen - and bison, deer, crocodiles, leopard, monkeys, lion. 

Home that night. The next day (Wednesday) was one of lazing, an Indian Chinese lunch (yum) followed by the obligatory trip to the rail museum in the cold afternoon to ride the toy train and wander around in despair at its disrepair. 

An evening with my college room mate and family sitting around my parents living room and reminiscing about the many nights we slept in a pull out sofa bed when we were trainees for a summer and a winter. 

And the next morning (Thursday) we woke at 3am to leave for this leg of the holiday. My son has been a real trooper, taking in his stride the many many flights, car trips and embracing the love on offer from relatives and friends he does not know intimately. 

We have just finished fabulous Day 1 of this next leg of the holiday. Fabulous especially after the epic journey yesterday. Tomorrow I will tell you all about it - when I've had enough Margarita's to help recover fully from it. Meanwhile, Good Night.