Home again

We landed in Singapore at 4.45 am and said goodbye to Liz and Mike, then had 2 hours before our flight to Brisbane. It was an almost empty flight and we had a pair of seats by the window. I was able to lie across seats in the middle for a couple of hours.
The flight arrived in Brisbane at 5pm and Emily collected us. A quick trip back to Yeronga through the tunnels and coffee at her place, then we hopped in the Impreza and were back in Toowoomba around 7.30 to drop Denise, then home past the tasteless excessive Christmas lights of some houses.
After the long last day of the trip, it was good to have good flights home.

Dimapur-Kolkata-Singapore

The Resort hosted an outdoor wedding with very loud music until well after midnight so we started our last day with less than ideal rest.
It was nice to meet Dick for the early morning walk around the resort which was beside a broad river bed, a fancy mansion and a large anthurium nursery.
We drove to the Kachari ruins which were interesting.

Almost next door was a large market and we spent some time wandering among the food items.

We were at Dimapur airport in good time as Alister and the drivers were going back to Guwahati where he would take the train back to Siliguri for his next tour - again to West Sikkim.
Fortunately we got seats by the window in the departure lounge although there was little happening as planes were delayed. After a while they provided us with water and snacks and we eventually got on our plane a couple of hours late.
We were further delayed once we got to Kolkata airport as the luggage was very slow to emerge and came in separate times. Dick's bag, identical to mine, did not appear until about an hour later. Then we had to find our tour guide to take us to the hotel. We did not have time to go to lunch as planned, in fact, once we got to the hotel, we only had about an hour to shower and freshen up before we headed back to the airport where we managed to buy a snack before the plane boarded.

Khonoma to Dimapur

I had a nice morning walk along a lower road towards Dick's homestay, although I ran out of time to get all the way.
After breakfast we had a wonderful walk around the village, stopping at Dick's homestay for tea before going down to the ricefields, then walking up them before climbing back to the village for lunch.
After lunch we headed off to Dimapur. Another long slow drive.
We were tired when we got to the Niathu Resort which consisted of two storey chalets. It was nicely done and we were glad to relax with a cup of tea in our room. Unfortunately I did not work out the hot water switch and had to wash my hair in cold water which left me quite cold.

Khonoma

After a chilly night in our tents, conveniently sited at the end of a gully which contained a frozen stream, we had a short wander along the ice covered water in the valley before heading out with the prospect of a late lunch back at our homestay if someone could alert Ketho on their mobile.
We quickly warmed up as we climbed out in the sunshine and were glad to get to the tunnel through the vegetation then up to the forest.