October 14, 2014

Indira Gandhi International Airport, India

Jet bridge at Indira Gandhi International Airport.
Jet bridge at Indira Gandhi International Airport.

I woke up today, got ready, and packed my bags. I then checked out of the hotel, took the elevator down, and walked out to the street. I found an auto-rickshaw with a decent price to take me to the airport and it then took an hour to make it there – the traffic was horrendous. At the airport, I checked in, passed through Immigration, and then waited for my flight, spending as much of the left over taka bills in my wallet as I could (I had a cappuccino and a slice of chocolate delight cake – very delicious). I then boarded the plane and it took two hours to reach Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi. After the plane landed, I entered the airport terminal, found the correct gate for my follow-on flight, and waited to board the plane. While waiting, I finished reading the Old Testament and was very glad that I finally did; my favorite books are: Genesis, Exodus, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes (“all is vanity”), Song of Songs, and Wisdom of Ben Sira. Then after waiting for some time, the gate changed . . . then it changed again; after waiting at the final gate for some time, buses arrived, but we never boarded them; it was some time before we were finally informed that the flight was cancelled. All of us who were transit passengers, then waited to be taken to the airport’s hotel; we were guided to the hotel and then we waited around for the staff to figure out where to put us all, this took two hours (not very efficient). The airline company (Jet Airways) decided to be very cheap when it came to putting passengers up for the night; they grouped families and couples together, but they also put complete strangers together in the same room with only one bed, not the nicest thing to do (rape is a very real danger); the staff for the airline and the hotel told us that there were no more rooms available, but this proved to be a lie once someone else came in and paid for a room; I ended up being fortunate, my assigned bedmate decided to stay in the room his two friends were in, so I got a room to myself. The hotel did provide a free buffet for us, and I had rice, a chickpea and vegetable cuisine, and water. After dinner and settling in to my hotel room, I tried to buy some Indian wine at the duty free shop, but without a boarding pass (the Jet Airways staff collected all of them), I was out of luck. I then went back to my room empty handed and went to sleep (with no stranger to cuddle up with).

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An open journal or an exercise in narcissism.