Sunday, January 17, 2010

Skipping Saturday

Here's the breakdown:
Arrived in Logan at 8am
Arrived Chicago at 12 or so
The flight out was delayed until 9pm, so it was a long chill
Being Business class, we had access to the Executive Lounge, which was very comfortable.
Business class seats on the flight over totally ruled. It was like old-school flying, where they offer you magazines and you order from a menu. Lots of legroom. The seats were lazy-boy style, they reclined fully and had very adjustable controls and a built-in remote control for your teevee. The staff waited on you hand and foot, it made it pretty bearable.
The plane also had an external camera that you could watch as well. So you could see us landing and taking off. It was an interesting perspective.
We stopped over for two hours in Frankfurt, but didn't deplane. They just cleaned it (it was freezing when they opened the doors) and got a new crew. Then it was seven more hours in the air to Mumbai.
Because of the delay, we had to do Customs in Mumbai. Our luggage didn't come for a while, making it the most tense part of the trip. They kept announcing how transfers to Bangalore like us ought to hurry up or we would miss our fligfhts. Meanwhile, no baggage. Eventually it came and we got on a bus to the domestic station. By then it was like 5am or some such but the place was still jumping.
We finally worked that all out, but we had missed the 6:15 flight and waited again until the 9:30. Ambitiuos baggage-dudes helped us out and we finally made the quick flight to our final destination.
We were immediately picked up by our drivers and made the 30km ride to the hotel. This took us through the old section of town, which was very lively and dirty. Traffic was amusingly death-defying. It all seemed to work out, with people tooting each other constantly. There were several times when cars were a hairs-breadth from us. Lanes seemed like less than suggestions - more like dotted line decorations in the road. Everyone was very calm about the chaos though. You would see girls in saris riding sidesaddle on the backs of motorcyles zipping in and out of traffic barely bothering to hold on. Whole families crammed onto mopeds.
Then its into the military-style courtyyard of the hotel, complete with bomb-snoopers. The hotel seems fine, and is very western. By then it caught up with me and I crashed hard.
We got up and had dinner, though. I got the buffet and it was fine - very artistic presentation, especially the deserts. So far food has been no problem, a joy even. And the stories of the city smell seem exagerated. Even the old town wasn't much different than places in the Yucatan.
So, so far so good, but I haven't really done much. Work starts tomorry. Hope to get some photos soon, meanwhile, here's a couple videos

2 comments:

  1. Oh, wow! I wasn't expecting you to do all this already!! If you can keep this up, we'll all be well educated in the ways of Bangalore.

    Looks very interesting, and your digs ought to be pretty comfortable -- glad there's a little kitchen and a decent work area. Palatial, indeed, or at least far better than the average hotel room! I like it that you can watch the world go by outside your window.

    Love you; happy adventures!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. So glad you landed and are getting settled in a little bit! Your hotel room looks nice - workout stuff is a plus!

    Thanks for the vids; keep them coming. We're all getting an education through you. Good luck on your first day and keep us posted.

    Love ya!

    ReplyDelete