Good morning from Delhi
We had the smoothest flight on our Continental Boeing 777-200. Couldn’t even feel the take-off! 14 1/2 hours after taking off we floated onto the runway in Delhi a half-day into the future.
Lisa here. That was Peggi’s experience. Of course, she sat down on the plane and promptly went to sleep and slept for the entire time. I, on the other hand, kept the flight crew going. I went to the tail of the plane and serially gave each and every flight attendant a massage. I personally take responsibility for the high morale amongst the crew.
It has been hazy since we landed. Hazy at the airport and during the 45 minute drive to town at midnight. OMG, how they drive here. Marked lanes that are totally ignored. Everyone pushing and shoving and cutting into each other. And honking! I didn’t look. And I did not panic or even get nervous.
A mention about the New Delhi airport. It’s about the size of the state of Rhode Island. I guess that’s what you need for a city of 20 million people.
Above is the view from our hotel window. It was dark and gloomy til the sun broke thru the clouds at 7:30 am. Here is our room at the Metropolitan Hotel.
After a wonderful Indian breakfast we went for a walk. But we were shocked to see it was raining hard. so we waited half an hour and it cleared up. Along the way, everyone wanted to help us. They wanted us to take a car to somewhere or shop somewhere. It was our free day and we just wanted to walk. We did walk for a couple of hours. Finally a nice local man helped us cross a busy intersection and walked with us. He explained it was too dangerous to walk because of pickpockets and thieves and we got in a tuk-tuk with him and came back to the hotel.
Security is good here. Here we are going thru security to get back into the hotel. We are planning an uneventful trip!
We are glad that you are going along with us!
Tomorrow we are touring Delhi with a guide. We will see temples, public buildings, markets and a terrific tea shop. And then it is off to Jaipur on the early morning first class train. I’ll post again from Jaipur.
It’s still Saturday. We just returned to our hotel after a slight snafu in plans. We were supposed to go to a show of classical Indian dance. When we got there, we were told to come back in an hour as they couldn’t accommodate us at the time we were booked. If this happened in the States, arrrgh!! Here, it’s just life as it is. As we drove around the city–and earlier in the day as we walked–what I was aware of was how vibrantly alive this country is.
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