Celtic Rover
Time to chill……
This trip has been very much full-on for the past four months, that is, for me, a long time of 7 am starts and gruelling difficult 8 or 10-hour drives with only the occasional stationary day – and even then with a long list of repairs or other tasks. Even getting my truck in and out of the backstreets of Delhi in 35 oC 100% humidity was not at all stress-free. Totally worth it to spend a few days with my girls but parking the truck in the backstreets of Delhi is not the best concept, thanks to vigilant hotel security guards all was well.
It was lovely to meet Poppy and Holly, we were fortunate that Poppy has a friend from her year in Cornell who lives and works in Dehli so he was able to pick the girls up at the airport and show us around town ending up with a home meal and meeting his extended family which was a great first day for them in India
So now it’s time for a break, I have stepped off my Overlanding style of budget hostels, and sleeping in the car, for a week until Lee arrives. I have booked into the crumbling glory of a nice bungalow complete with gardens, patios and swimming pool. It is an oasis of calm in the sweltering metropolis of Delhi, with a lovely big air-conditioned room. And plenty of room to safely work on the car. My plan is to do a full clean and repack of the Landy, fix the roof struts, service it and source new tyres and catch up on blogs, photos and videos with the occasional bit of gentle tourism.
Lutyens was one of the main designers of New Delhi and this bungalow also designed by him has been in the same family since it was built
Just as I wrote this the heavens opened and christened Nelson with his first monsoon rain so might just have a coffee and watch some cooling rainfall for a bit….
My days here have been restful and I have managed to get a few critical things done, most critically I have applied for my Iran visa approval, if that works out by Monday or Tuesday I will be able to get the visa I need to return to Iran on my way home, if not then I have some big choices to make – carry on to Singapore and ship home from there or Malaysia or try to find a group to cross back through China/Tibet on to Kazakhstan and Russia…I would much prefer to stick to my original plan and go home through Iran.
I also got some work done on the car, in the monsoon as you can see from the picture below, once again the Land Rover dealer network was super polite and helpful in its supply of coffee but they did not have any of the parts for a service (used mine) but they were finally able, by bringing out the nearly retired workshop manager, to diagnose the remaining looseness in the steering as being sourced in the steering box itself, which of course they have no parts for, fortunately there is a specialist workshop in Katmandu that I have been in touch with who think they can sort this out and Lee is bringing replacement parts for the next service.
Finally I sweated my way through the markets of Delhi to the Vodafone shop to get my Indian SIM working properly with the internet which is an important back up for when Lee and I are travelling and the kids are in India. So for my last day I am making an attempt to get this blog up to date, with all the poor internet in the stans I have fallen way behind on that front so coffee in hand here I go!
