Our tale begins when we leave home for the airport at 9:50 a.m. on Friday morning and ends when we arrive at our hotel in Delhi at 5:20 a.m. local time on Sunday morning. That's 3:50 in the afternoon on Saturday for those of you following along at home. That's 33 hours of continuous travel. Sleeping on the flight from San Francisco to Beijing was challenging at best. The flight was super bumpy for at least 9 1/2 of the 12 hours. The three rows in front of us were filled with families with small children. I'm guessing they ranged in age from around two or three to seven or eight years old. The littlest one took it upon herself to scream her head off periodically during the twelve-hour flight. Not to be outdone, the seven-year-old boys were hooting and hollering it up while they tried to tag each other through the seats. And this group of kids was clearly in training to make the Indian Olympic volleyball team in 2032, judging by the number of times they hit their big plastic ball from row to row. And I'm telling you, those kids had better tighten up their game if they want to make the team because that ball kept sailing out of bounds - and right into our row as we were trying to sleep. Somehow I must have conked out completely at some point because I evidently missed one heck of a pillow fight.
After a quick layover in Beijing, we boarded our flight to Delhi. For that 7 1/2 hour flight, we were treated to not one but two crying babies, one a couple of rows in front of us and one a couple of rows behind us. And by crying I mean screaming. And by screaming I mean shrieking. Oh, yeah, that was fun. Sleep was a little hard to come by, but no worries. We'll sleep when we get to the hotel, right? It sounded like a plan at the time. However, we had failed to take into consideration the inefficiency experts at Indira Gandhi International Airport that left us standing in an unmoving line for over two hours waiting, begging to be allowed to present our e-visa approval and officially enter the country. We also failed to take into consideration the frantic search through the baggage claim area, carousel to carousel, to find our luggage that sat unclaimed for the two-plus hours we were unable to cross the great divide that is customs and immigration. That was fun, too. And so was trying to find any airport employee who could answer the question of where the unclaimed luggage goes when people like us are endlessly delayed by customs and immigration officials who can't figure out how to work the digital fingerprint machine. Mmm-hmmm. True story. The good news is we did finally find our luggage. And not because we found someone who could answer our question. It was because the very nice employees who had taken custody of it and were watching it for us saw us frantically racing around looking for it and called out, "Air China?" which immediately stopped us in our tracks and sent us rushing over to them with tears of gratitude streaming down our travel-worn faces. (Okay. Not quite, but almost.)
After our happy luggage reunion, we went in search of our tour group, more than slightly afraid that they had given up hope of ever seeing us and left for the hotel without us, assuming we must not be coming. I mean, it's now almost three hours after our plane landed. I could see how they could have thought we didn't make our plane. But thankfully they were there waiting for us with most of the rest of the group. And unbelievably, we weren't the last ones to join the group. There were still a few more poor souls who took longer than we did to get released from e-visa purgatory and rejoin the human race.
We finally headed to the hotel, arriving in our rooms around 5:20 a.m. After unpacking the necessities, settling in, calling Dan and Ashley and getting organized, Mom and I were finally able to hit the hay at 7:00 a.m. I was so keyed up and so overtired at that point that I couldn't fall asleep right away. I think I dropped off around 7:40 - and enjoyed every minute of my 20-minute power nap. Yes, that's right. We had to be up at 8:00 to get ready, have breakfast and hit the ground running for a full day of touring Delhi. By the time we got back to the hotel that night and had dinner, Mom and I were so slap-happy and punch-drunk that we literally weren't even making sense when we'd talk. I couldn't string five words together in any way that made any kind of sense, so the whole blog thing just wasn't happening. And even now, after having a solid 10 1/2 hours of good, solid, sleeping-pill-induced sleep, the whole touring Delhi thing is still pretty foggy. Thank goodness I took pictures, because otherwise I wouldn't be able to differentiate between what happened in reality and what was all a dream. It all seems like a dream, to tell you the truth, but I'll do my best to piece it together for you.
We travelled to the old part of Delhi first. I honestly thought that Vietnam was the worst road chaos I would ever experience in my life. But Vietnam is amateur hour compared to this place. You have never in your life seen anything like the congestion and craziness that is driving in the old part of Delhi.
Cars, trucks, buses, tuk-tuks, bicycles, pedestrians - you name it, it was all squeezed into this road at the same time and everyone thinks they have the right-of-way. Welcome to India. I hope you're not in a hurry.
We finally arrived at our destination and were taken for a rickshaw ride through some of the back alleys.
This is a little of what we saw:
And you must check out the amazing job the telephone company does with the telephone wires here. I wonder if AT&T is hiring?
I'm telling ya, I feel safe. Don't you?
After our rickshaw ride, we had a brief stop at India Gate, a memorial to India's war dead.
Then it was on to the Gandhi Museum, built right across from his tomb. The grounds were absolutely lovely and peaceful. It was a welcome respite from the crowds and noise of the rest of the city.
After a long day of touring Delhi, we went back to our hotel, and right outside the gate was the beginning of a wedding procession. These are just wedding guests and onlookers. The bride was not present.
Evidently, the groom rides a white horse to the wedding, a little along the lines of Prince Charming.
Well, that's it for now. I will get you all caught up on what we did today, tomorrow. The good news is that since I actually slept last night, I actually remember a lot of what I saw today on our way to Agra! Many pictures and experiences to come.
No comments:
Post a Comment