Delhi Take 2

Before I start where I last left off, I wanted to add in some additional observations, thoughts, experiences, etc that I had.

I never saw any sign of recycling in India. For example, each day in the office I would use 2-3 bottles of water. There was no place to recycle them. I asked a few co-workers and they just looked at me like I was crazy to think that they would have a recycling program. However, in many other ways India is making a strong effort to save our environment. In our hotel rooms we had to put the key card into a little slot by the door, this allowed the lights to be turned on in the room. Once you take it out, all the lights turn off in a short time period. There are subtle reminders to conserve power all over the place. In the office and in malls/stores the power will just go off for a short time period. At stoplights drivers are encouraged to turn their car off if they will be sitting there for longer then 60 seconds. It’s interesting, India is trying to conserve and protect the environment in ways that are opposite of what the US is doing.

There have been so many interesting things that I have seen on my daily drive to and from work. I have talked about some of them, but there are so many more. On this one small block in a neighborhood that I drive by, there are about 6 houses in a row with beautiful gates. I have noticed that in front of the gates, on the cement, each day there are these beautiful designs created from white flowers. One morning I saw a women out in front that was creating these designs one small tiny white flower at a time. I asked my co-worker, and it seems that these are done to signify some celebration or special event. I am not sure what the event was for this group of homes, but I did see it sever days. It also looked like the drive way was washed off every day and a new design was placed. I tried to get a picture on my last day of one, but my driver didn’t understand and drove by rather quickly.

The commute normally took me 30 minutes, plus or minus a few minutes, each way. On the last day it took close to an hour. We hit so much traffic! One big delay happened at the one lane bridge that we use to cross the stream. On this day we had a small truck going one way, and a line of cars going the other. In between we had pedestrians, cows and motorcycles. All of this on a single lane bridge. The driver of the truck and the driver of the car were at a stand still. Neither one would move. They yelled back and forth and just stayed there. Several of the other car drivers yelled at the situation as well. Finally some of the pedestrians walked up to the truck and convinced the driver to reverse off the bridge to let everyone else pass. This whole process took at least 15 minutes. All the while approximately 15 cows slowly meandered across the bridge.

On the drive, but close to the commute, there is a driving school, this cracks me up every day, as clearly many of the drivers in India didn’t pay much attention to what they learned in driving school! Now, I do have to add a point to this…I rode in 4 of my co-workers cars while in Bangalore. They are 1000% better and safer drivers then the majority of the people on the road. So, it’s clear that it’s not the regular people who drive in this aggressive, rule ignoring way. It seems like it’s mainly hired drivers, cabs, and rickshaws.

On this short cut drive we take, we drive around the old airport. That in itself is pretty interesting. They used to use this airport just one year ago as the main Bangalore airport. Now it looks fairly abandoned. It seems like the military uses it for some things now. On that route we also pass several military facilities. I can’t tell what the differences are, or what each facility does, but it’s clear there is high security at each one.

Like I mentioned before, there are lots of cows roaming around in India. We noticed tons of them on or drive from Delhi to Agra. But, on my commute every day I would see approximately 30 of them. The last few days I took my camera, to hopefully capture as many “cow in road” pics for my friend Deb. Once I get home I am emailing them all to her.

Tuesday was my last day in the office. The morning went by very quickly with meetings. Then, the group and I went out for our last lunch in Bangalore. Matt met us, checking out of the hotel and bringing along all of the luggage (what a nice guy Matt!). We went to a great Chinese restaurant. Chinese food is very popular in Bangalore (maybe more of India). But they have some great places there. It was really fun for me to introduce Matt to everyone on the team. And I am sure it was nice for him to put faces to names. Now, if only he could meet all my US co-workers!! I was impressed; he actually remembered everyone’s names.

After lunch Matt and I left for the airport. When we first arrived in Bangalore it was night. So, on the drive to the airport it was like we were seeing it all for the first time. One place Matt noticed that we found interesting was the “Bureau of Agriculturally Important Insects”. There were also so many bill boards for “My Name is Kahn”, the new big movie that is coming out this Friday. It’s now on our Netflix list!

We arrived at the Bangalore airport and proceeded to check in with Kingfisher airlines for our domestic flight to Delhi. Kingfisher has a very low limit for baggage weight. Like, 50 pounds per person, and 1 carry on. You can pay, and pay dearly, for overage. But since we had an International flight following they waived any additional charges. Now, the interesting thing about that is that once we checked in with American Airlines we discovered that one of our bags was ABOVE 70 pounds. They had us rearrange our stuff so that bag was just under 70 pounds. They then said we would have to pay for the pounds over 50 for that bag. This was all fine, as we knew we had stuffed everything as much as we could. However, as I was paying them with my credit card, the airline worker helping us commented on the fact that we had come from a Kingfisher flight. Once confirming that she waived our baggage fee. Ok, kind of confusing….if you have an International flight, they waive it. If you have a domestic flight, they waive it. Oh well, it was free! Somehow I seriously doubt that they aren’t going to charge us for the overage from Chicago to SFO.

So, the Bangalore flight went fine. It’s a bit odd because the Kingfisher airline actually serves a complete meal on just a 2 hour flight. It was Indian food, and really pretty good. When we arrived in Delhi, we arrived at the Domestic terminal. You actually have to off load, pick up all your bags and transfer yourself to the International terminal. I was told that we would have to do this on our own via cab, but it turns out they now have a better system. You collect your bags, check in with the transfer deck, then board a bus that takes you to the outside of the International terminal. We arrived there at about 9pm Tuesday night to be told that our flight was canceled. Upon further investigation we found that the flight was not actually canceled, but just delayed by 16 hours. I guess there were mechanical problems in Chicago. So, the airline sent everyone to hotels in the area. Since we were flying business class we got put up in a pretty nice place.

This delay however pushed our arrival into SFO back 24 hours. This sucks because Matt’s mom was supposed to work Thursday, and she ended up having to change around her schedule. Also, Mia and Mason were so excited to pick us up from the airport on Wednesday….. but now that is changed to Thursday.

So, in the morning the hotel called our room and told us that our bags would be picked up at a certain time, to be down stairs at a certain time. This actually all worked out really well. They had a bus that took us to the airport. We got right in and checked in just fine. We had also found out in the morning by calling the airline that they had split Matt and I up once we got to Chicago. They were planning on sending Matt to SFO on a flight on another airline that left one hour after reaching Chicago (the chances of him making that flight are/were very slim). I was scheduled to leave Chicago the next morning, and arrive in SFO at the same time originally planned, just one day later. So, we ended up getting Matt’s flight changed to the same as mine.

Now, let me explain the levels of security we have to go through to get on this flight. First, to get into the airport you have to have your passport and a proper itinerary printout. They scrutinize this paperwork more then you can imagine. Then, we had to have our papers checked by another airline rep before we got to the check out counter. Then, again paperwork and passports checked. Then we had to go through reverse immigration basically where documents and passports checked again. Then, the normal security, where women are pulled into a private room to be searched. Each person has to pass through the metal detector, pass bags through, then be patted down and wanded. This particular time I got frisked rather thoroughly. Then we went to board our actual plane, and we showed our passports and tickets like normal, but then went through yet another security section (on the walkway to the plane), where we had to have our bags checked, and were frisked and wanded again. It’s a little unnerving all this security…but then it’s also a bit comforting because you know that the airplane you get on has got to be safe!

So, right now I am sitting 30,000 feet in the air…….just south of Yekaterinburg (wherever the is!). The guy across the aisle is watching LOTR (I am thinking of Lory each time I catch a glimpse of the screen), my boss (well, bosses bosses boss) and his wife are sitting just across the plane and we have a very clear visual shot form our seat to theirs. Hope he isn’t monitoring al the free wine I am drinking!! I am about to finish my second movie.

Tonight we will be staying in Chicago (Wednesday night, not sure what time I will upload this). And we’ll be in SFO on Thursday morning. I am excited beyond believe to see the kids. I miss them so much!