Arriving in New Delhi

Many hours later, we found our flight landing in the darkened city of New Delhi, just a few minutes from Midnight local time. From the air, the grouping of lights seemed no different from any other city I've flown to. From the ground, however, the three-wheeled cabs (which seem to be called rickshaws) and streams of Land Rovers told me where we no longer in Kansas. The terminal was considerably warmer than Amsterdam – a welcome change from the rainy, 30° days we'd grown accustomed to. I could smell strange mixes of scents - smoke and dust from nearby construction projects, tall grasses - wet with the night dew, burning motor oil and rich tobacco pipes.

As we walked around, I was only slightly surprised to armed soldiers in the airports. The men and women of the Indian Self Defense forces stood at just about every intersection, assault rifles slung (I think the army uses the AK-7, a clone of the AK-47, but I'll have to look that up when I get home). On the plane, we were instructed not to take pictures of the interior of the airport or the military, though I didn't see any signs as such. They were generally an austere-looking bunch, so I opted not to press my luck.

The weather was foggy and hazing, but still very warm, which seems to be common this time of year. Making our way through customs, we grabbed our bag and changed our cash to Indian Rupees. The going rate was 47.90 INR per US $, so we suddenly had several thousand INR. Later, we'd find that bottle water or cofee cost as little as 30 INR; a small soda was 50 INR. Seems like your dollars really do go further over here!

Outside the exit to the airport, cabbies hung around, eager to take you into the city to the hotels. We were told to only take cabs called for by your hotel or to make arrangements to have a driver meet you at the airport (as was our arrangement in Amenabad).

Expecting to catch our flight from New Delhi in a few hours, we wandered around to flight lounge and spent the hours playing cards (yes, she beat me pretty often). Our flight from New Delhi to Amenabad was supposed to leave in a few hours at 6AM local time, so we headed in the direction of the gates to find our next flight.

After showing our tickets to a gate attendant, we got a few puzzled looks back. The language barrier held us up for moment, before we collectively figured out Ramona and I were at the International Terminal. Our flight to Amenabad was at the Domestic Terminal, located 10km or so away from here. Ha! A guard got a us pointed back to the International Terminal to catch a shuttle bus to the Domestic Terminal, right where we first exited the airport. We found a cache of shuttle buses, but no other passengers or drivers. As we looked perplexed, we met another guard, to whom we explained our situation. When he figured out we were trying to get a shuttle, he spoke with some local attendants. The two of them had a conversation that lasted an eternity, but they finally unlocked the door and let us wait in the shuttle bus lounge. It seemed this was where we should have waited for the next flight in the first place. Oops!

In just a few minutes, the bus boarded and whisked us to the Domestic Terminal. As we careened (and yes, I use the word in the proper context), we saw India's road traffic in all its crazy splendor. There were no traffic lights on the roads and highways, so turning and change lanes required judicious use of one's horn. Lanes weren't totally optional, but were occasionally necessary. It seemed like every turn was a car accident waiting to happen, but there we no collisions that I could see. I guess the horn is used as the turn signal over here...

At the Domestic Terminal, we arrived about four hours before our flight. By now, we'd been awake for about 20 hours, so I expected us to get situated, then cat nap for bit. The first order of business was food, no, coffee, so we struck out through the terminal.

The most curious sight I found was a "burger" stand called McIndian. Their veggie burger and French fry plate seemed rather appealing, though we opted for just the fries for now.

I walked back over to the time table board, to see how long we had before our flight. The flight information now said 'Delayed'. Hmmm. This was the start of an unfortunately long day!

While we waited for the flight, we learned that the heavy morning fog delayed all of the flights out of the airport. The delay was first expected to last for an hour or two. Then it was clear, three hours later, that estimate was a bit inaccurate. Our flight finally boarded around 11AM, almost five hours later than expected. Once we got onto the tarmac, a mechanical problem was discovered, delaying our departure until after 1PM. With our initial arrival in Delhi just before Midnight, we'd eventually waited over twelve hours to get to Amenabad!