Travel Day•day 13

This morning started off a little more stressful than we planned. Our first flight is at 3:40 out of Bagdogra. We have to take a jeep from Darjeeling to Bagdogra which is a good couple of hours away through the super windy mountain roads. We decided to get to the taxi stand around 9 just to be safe and give ourself plenty of time. We got to the stand around 8:40 and were just pushed into the crowd of people also waiting for a jeep. These are shared jeep taxis that hold about 10 people (2 in the front with the driver, 4 in the middle and 4 in the back with all the luggage on top). We were waiting and waiting, trying to stay patient but getting a little antsy. Finally around 9:15 we got into a jeep! He didn't end up leaving for at least 15 minutes because he was waiting for one more person to fill up the jeep. We finally start moving and not even 10 minutes in he pulls over because he has a FLAT TIRE. So all 10 of us pile out of the jeep and are just standing on the side of the road waiting. The spare tire that he pulls out of the back looks like it's 100 years old and in worse shape than the flat. 

Luckily the tire went on with no problems and we also didn't have any problems with the tire the rest of the way (which I was genuinely nervous about)! 

We randomly stopped on the mountain around noon because the driver was hungry...so he gets out and gets food meanwhile the rest of us are impatiently waiting for him! Gabby and I were getting pretty nervous about time. We had know idea how far we were but knew we were still on the mountain so we were still doing the super slow, driving down the curvy mountain. Around 1245 we are finally back into town and the driver stops in a pretty busy area for a younger Indian couple to get out. While he was getting their bags off the roof I asked them where/when we should get off the jeep for the airport. Lucky that I asked because the couple was actually headed to the airport and had already sent for an OLA (like our uber)! They offered for us to go with them and we ended up paying about 1/4 of what we expected to pay to get the airport! The whole trip from Darjeeling to the airport only cost me 255 rupee (130/125)! We made it to the airport with plenty of time to catch our flight and were starving and excited to be able to grab a bite to eat! This was just a short flight down to Kolkata where we would then fly back to Bangkok. Security was a complete disaster! So unorganized and crazy. People just doing whatever they wanted and not following any of the rules or lines, etc. When we got through security we were even more disappointed! It was TINY! 3 small gates, a coffee stand with a few snacks and a jewelry shop! We were annoyed but decided to just wait to grab dinner when we got into Kolkata! International terminal would definitely have something good! :) The flight to CCU was uneventful. We got into CCU grabbed our bags and ended over to the international checkin. We were so much closer to dinner! We got checked in and through security pretty easily only to be extremely let down AGAIN!!! international terminal and there were TWO places. A coffee stand and a little half ass restaurant. We ended up ordering potato wedges, French fries and tandoori paneer (was the most bland and boring thing ever) and a chocolate muffin! On top of there being nothing we had like 4 hours to kill. We sat at our table for hours playing cards. It helped the time go by a little bit! 

We boarded our flight and took off on time. We were so much closer to a shower and our beds!!! *we haven't taken a shower since we started our trek* 😳 

The immigration/customs and baggage claim in Bangkok went really quickly since it was so late and not super crowded! 

We had already decided to just take a cab back to saraburi to get there faster!! 

We were definitely planning on having to haggle with our driver to not charge us a ton to take us to saraburi but we walked up and he told us 1000 baht right off the bat (we were expecting 2000ish and hopefully working our way down to 1500ish)! 

The drive home only took about an hour and 15 minutes putting us at the house at 3am! I was so excited to be home and really should have gone to sleep straight away but I had too much to do before leaving in the morning for Vietnam! 

I started some laundry and then took the longest shower! It was my first shower in way too many days! I finally fell asleep around 5:30 and my alarm was set for 7:45!