Travel day 5

 A wedding had arrived at the St Regis last night and we saw them setting up and using the first lavish garden themed venue for the three day event last night. By morning, it was packed down - the staff must have worked through the night. But that also meant the breakfast buffet was pumping with new guests for the weekend. The pool also had a bunch of kids in it and we swam while they played “Marco polo”. We showered and got our taxi to the airport about an hour away. The driver took the windy and bumpy back roads so we all felt a little rough upon arrival. 

Goa airport is nothing to write home about and neither was our unremarkable 50min flight. We changed our itinerary from another night at the Leela palace in Bangalore to the Airport Taj. This is because it takes a good 90mim to get into town and our flight had landed right before peak hour so that could have been longer. Seeming we fly out to Singapore tomorrow, we would have rocked up at dinner time, slept and then right back in the car for the drive back to the airport. It just wasn’t worth it. They didn’t let us cancel our nights accommodation  but we saved money elsewhere in the trip so figured the extra cash on a night closeby would be worth it and luckily it has been!

The Taj Bangalore is a 2min walk across an airbridge from the airport so we were checked into our room with enough time for a swim before dinner. However the temperature outside was only in the mid 20s and in the shade of the hotel, the pool was icy cold. We braved it for 2min because Ethan was excited for the pool but we all decided to exit pretty quickly as soon as our teeth were chattering. Had we become accustomed to 34 degrees and warm pool water? Yes. Yes we had.

We went to the in-hotel Indian restaurant and had some very tasty curries. Ethan was given a drawing pack by the staff who were so kind to him, and as they caught he and I peering through the glass into the kitchen to watch the chef make the breads they invited him in to see how it’s done! With a hairnet on both he and Darcy, they saw the bread attached to the sides of clay pots and baked at over 300 degrees! What fun. When he returned to the dinner table he asked me if he could eat the bean on the salad, which I said was fine, but then Darcy said “wait! That’s a chilli!”. Too late, he had bitten straight into the green chilli and swallowed. Oh no. The poor thing was swiftly given some cucumber and yoghurt by dad and a spice & some chocolate by the staff to help out. He was fine, but I felt terrible. They brought us a complimentary dessert (they did love Ethan) and we took him upstairs to bed while I went people watching in the lobby bar to write this post. Travel days are dull, but so much easier spacing it out rather than doing multiple stops in one day. Tomorrow is another travel day - this time to Singapore. Which means our time in India has come to an end! We’ll be sad to leave, but excited to come again in a few years to explore more of this huge and diverse country.