India Day 11

I’m in Delhi once again, so of course it’s raining. At the start of the trip I intended to get some sight seeing in today, but at this point I’m exhausted, out of cash and not mentally up to much more big city traffic. So I had a quiet breakfast and then got a ride to the airport.

Or to be more precise, there was a mix-up about when I was being picked up. So I ended up sitting in the lobby for awhile before we got the schedule figured out. The grandfather clock in the lobby had a really pretty chime, and the manager of the lounge took pity on me, opened a little early and set the TV to CNN for me.

As my flight wasn’t until later in the evening, I had a long sit at the airport. The sitting part was okay, as I had email to get caught up on and some reading to do. And certainly there was no shortage of people watching and even some interesting art.

Customs, on the other hand, was a nightmare. At one point they literally had no clerks working on the long line of international passport holders.

Photographic proof

Then the security checkpoint made me unpack my carry-on because it contained cameras. I recognize that I’m not exactly a seasoned international traveler, but that’s the first time I’ve ever heard of cameras mistaken for weapons or other contraband.

Somewhere in the flurry of unpacking and re-packing I managed to lose my Kindle, which was super upsetting.

At least clearing customs finally gave me access to the food court (it was mid evening at this point and I hadn’t eaten an actual meal since breakfast). Many of the options seemed targeted specifically at homesick Americans. I loved my time in India and would gladly return someday. But I have to admit that was the best-tasting Filet-o-Fish value meal I ever had.

Then at the gate everyone on my flight had to go through another security check, presumably because the first one didn’t meet US standards (they let us keep our shoes on, for starters). So everyone who bought water for the flight now lost their bottles, and once past the second check there was nowhere to get anything else to drink.

The plane was another Boeing 777, this one slightly older than the one on the way to India. There was no air valve to get a comforting breeze going, and my seatback screen didn’t work for awhile. Once the flight attendant got it up and running again I couldn’t figure out how to connect headphones to it. So I watched movies with English subtitles for hours, dozing here and there.