Planes, trains and automobiles

 All best laid plans can go wrong. Thank goodness when I woke up on Friday morning to get the coach to Heathrow. I saw my email from Air India that the flight was delayed and I rescheduled my coach.  The delays kept on coming and I ended up waiting in Heathrow for 10 hours and my connecting flight to Kolkata was moved to a much later one, meaning I missed out on a day of adventure. 

Now Jenny rang me this morning when I was on the overnight train from Kolkata, itself running 3 and a half hours late. The plan was to meet at Bagdogra airport and then head up into the hills. However her flight had been diverted and instead of flying into Delhi she had just landed in Mumbai! Who knows when she will arrive and I hope Air India are looking after her. Meanwhile I took a taxi up the hills, climbing to 4,900 feet to Kursesong, where I will spend the night. Countless hairpin bends and what felt like near misses added to the excitement of going up into the clouds and I have just had dinner, looking over the balcony at the hundreds of tiny lights on the tea plantations opposite, like tiny string lights on a Christmas tree.