I’ve never flown with British Airways and my opinion now is that they are fine – not anything special, but not too bad. At least we had the extra comfort afforded by exit-row window seats in an Airbus A350. It’s easy to see why they are beginning to mount a real take-over of the airways. The airbus is so much quieter, roomier and generally better equipped than an equivalent Boeing. Probably a Boeing on the way back, though.

Sadly, landing in Delhi is a real introduction to the delights of Indian bureaucracy. The immigration procedure – even with our ready pre-printed e-visa – feels interminable. What’s the point of filling in a mountain of detail online, only to have to give them half of it on a landing card and then have them look blankly at a Manx passport. It says “British Islands – Isle of Man” on the front and that doesn’t match with anything on their computer system, requiring a trip to the supervisor before they will let either Fred or myself in.

It is a relatively short flight, but with a 5.5-hour time difference, I’m afraid that a touch of jet-lag is inevitable. By the time we find our pick-up and get to the waiting car, it is about nine in the morning local and I feel like I’ve been roused at two. Then you are plunged into almost an hour of Delhi traffic to only drive about two miles to the hotel. I honestly don’t know why they paint the lines on the road, because nobody takes a blind bit of notice of them. Why have three lanes when you can easily get five across with only the occasional scrape.

Luckily, the hotel actually has our rooms available right away and we are soon able to relax for the day and get our bearings. Somewhere along the line, however, Fred discovers that the hotel is one of many dry establishments across the country and we can’t even have a beer with our dinner. The room is large and fairly comfortable and at least offers a desk and proper chair so I can sit and work on the start of this text. Then the buffet is more than acceptable and starts early enough to allow us all to get some much-needed sleep before our adventuring starts in earnest.