And a timely bump for the final section

We cleared the cabin for take off, at which point the purser informed me that my travel companion could not remain on the foot stool. Apparently it's safer for a small companion to rattle lose around the cabin than to be secured with a seat belt Mindless adherence to rules which show no understanding of the basis for them actually really annoys me. It's not often Tamsin doesn't get to sit where she wants - VS gets added to a very short list of airlines.

Food on board was lunch and afternoon tea. This being the day flight, I was looking forward to some scenery watching, and working out the IFE, which I'd failed to master on the outbound. There were a number of films I hadn't seen and wanted to watch, so I kicked off with Iron Man 2 and watched as we flew out over Pakistan and Afghanistan - the scenery was as amazing as I remembered on the inbound.

Lunch was served - unfortunately, I forgot to lift the menu. But there were a couple of Indian and European choices, so that there was a vegetarian and meat option in both food types. I went for the Indian chicken starter - it was like little tandoori tasty bites with a pakora type thing. Very nice, and not too spicy. For the main, I'd also gone chicken, a chicken stuffed with spinach with cheese on a mash. This was really nice actually - chicken wasn't dry and very well done. Breads included an Indian bread which I really enjoyed and managed to snag several portions of. Dessert, again, was an Indian or European dessert, so I went for mango pudding. It was ok, quite tasty, but not the highlight. I had some green tea to finish off the meal.

I continued to watch both the IFE and the scenery as we travelled onwards - flying over the Black and Caspian Sea was impressive, the scenery broken only by the stentorious snores rattling around the cabin. Someone close by the snorer was trying to arrange a seat swap with the snorer, into the back cabin...

Afternoon tea was served, the crew apologetic that it wasn't a proper English tea, since it was locally catered - they were especially damning of the cream. Nevertheless I ventured the scones and found them adequate.

And so the flight continued. Cabin crew were in evidence throughout, found me a quilt when I felt cold. As we started to descend into LHR, the cabin purser had a literal tussle with Tamsin who was once again very firmly secured on the foot stool, and once again it was decided it was safer to have her floating loose in the cabin


We held briefly in the north London hold, before landing on 27L, approximately 1 hour delayed due to the ATC problems at DEL. I was slow to disembark and had to leg it to get to immigration ahead of the horde. The bag was off relatively promptly, and I left the arms of VS.

I overnighted at LHR at the Sheraton, encountering en route a fabulous Hoppa driver. When chatting to him I admitted I was only 90% sure I was booked in the Sheraton and not the Skyline, he waited for me, and would have taken me to the Skyline. Sometimes, the kindness of strangers is unexpected, but welcome. In the event, I was in the Sheraton, got my 4k bonus points, a good nights sleep, before returning back to Scotland on BD.

More photos available at http://web.mac.com/jenbel/iWeb/India...%20travel.html

Yay - I've actually finished a trip report!