India 2006 6th January Part 1

The first day of my trip to India. I'm anxious, excited, nervous and extremely eager. This is my second trip to India - the first was to Jagganath Puri in the East. Now I'm going to New Delhi for the night, then Vrindavan in Uttar Pradesh and RadhaKund - one of Vaishnava India's most sacred spots.

The trip starts in the wee hours of the morning. Alicia and Andrew bid me goodbye at the airport and I assume they head home to enjoy a sleep in. I am left with a relatively heavy backpack to drag to check in- which moves fairly smoothly. I head into the departure lounge to relax before boarding a Malaysian airlines flight to Kuala Lumpur. The only problem is that I find out in the middle of the flight that this plane stops in Kuching as well. So it turns out to be a longer trip than expected but it was not unbearable.

Kuching is a tremendously green and mountainous country. It was amazing. Mother Nature is still in charge here. There is no truly developed metropolises or big cities, most of the buildings and developments that I see are in small townships. I don't think Kuching will develop as quickly as much of South East Asia but the potential is there if that should ever happen.

The plane takes off again after an hour's wait and we finally arrive in Kuala Lumpur after another 3 hours. This is the first time I've been to KLIA and it truly is an impressive airport. It is HUGE!! There are two massive terminals, one domestic and international and both are very new still. The facilities there are great too even though I didn't get to enjoy them as much as my transit time was only an hour. So I sat, and sat, and sat.

Finally, I boarded the plane for New Delhi and waited with bated breath for my arrival in New Delhi. Enjoyed a lovely Hindi movie about a chef who goes to London and finds love. Typical Bollywood masala story but funny and charming.

All I see of New Delhi is a sprinkling of lights - some flickering on and some off. It's obvious that there are periodic power outages as patches of light go off and come back on again. I am excited, but praying that New Delhi's airport will not be the same feral experience as it was in Kolkata.

It wasn't. The walk through to customs wasn't not the hurried rush of bodies that I was expecting and I breezed through customs fairly quickly. My luggage doesn't arrive as quickly as is expected and the waiting area is quickly filled with restless Indians on mobile phones. The terminal is warm, even though the last time I checked, it was supposed to be about 2 degrees in Delhi. At least the airport has got regular electricity!! Finally I collect my luggage and leave the terminal, only to be greeted by a sea of faces on the other end of the door. I walk through but don't see my driver anywhere... I wait around for a while but to no avail. So I wrangled together some cash and went to make a phonecall - Indian style - in a booth with signs proclaiming ISD/STD/PCO with someone who sits opposite you and dials your number. Service with a smile.