SOUTH ASIA BLOG October 20th, 2024 - DELHI to NEW YORK

 

10/20/24– The dawn of another trip is upon us as we soon embark for our journey home. A true bitter-sweet moment as my mind would love to do more but my body has said enough is enough. We’ve seen temples, tombs, backdrops from movies and some weird, crazy crap that you just have to witness to believe, but overall I feel very good with how it all went down.

Our hotel can’t give a true answer on how long a late check-out could be, so we book another hotel next to the airport. Even though we won’t be staying the night, having a place to relax in until 9pm or so seems more than ideal… and for only $22.95 USD (with my discount).

I consider going out this morning, but it’s very smoggy and feel I’ve done enough (even though there is more to explore in Delhi that looks interesting).

We check-out at 11am, pay the bill and get an Uber XL to take us to Hotel Shanti Palace (we actually have luggage space). It takes only twenty-five minutes, however, there seems to be quite a bit of police presence on the street.

Once we settle into our new place, we turn on the tv to find that an explosion happened this morning at a school in Delhi that may have been from a crude bomb. This coupled with the 70+ bomb threats for Indian flights have authorities on edge. Luckily, all have been hoaxes but something to pay attention to as the day develops.

We spend the entire afternoon in the hotel room catching up on things and watching a movie, then at 8pm we call an Uber to the airport (literally right around the corner but cost more than the forty minute trip yesterday. Go figure!). Still only $3 USD though. You’d think going to the airport 3.5 hours early would be plenty of time, however, as we arrive we see the line just to get into the building already forming.

After they look over our passports at the door, we check in at the airline counter for American Airlines and proceed to immigration, which is literally right behind it. Our mouths drop as we see the incredibly long line for this. Overall, it takes us 1.5 hours just to get through security (which they have me take every little cord known to man out of my bag for inspection) leaving us with just under two hours left to get to our gate. No problem right? Wrong. The gate is far away and since it’s a US bound flight we are told to be there two hours early for check-in and further screening.

At the gate they allow no food or drinks beyond the screening point, so we have ten minutes to find something and scarf it down before they let us in. Finally… FINALLY we can relax a bit before our flight.

       

AA 293 takes off on time and is a long 16+ hours straight to JFK. I have to say, New York traffic has nothing on what we just witnessed in Asia. We are more than happy to pick up our car and drive the hour back to our place without constant honking, swerving and dodging going on (even if the shuttle from the airport is in a white abduction van).

To add- here are some things I figured out in India: Every lane is a turning lane regardless of how many cars are in the way. A horn is for letting others know you are there while flashers are used to tell others to get out of the way. Every local is a guide, and beef is outlawed due to their practicing religion. Just in case anyone missed it before.