Landing in Delhi

Obviously, I did not update this blog while we were actually IN India. It turns out that I GROSSLY overestimated Indian wifi network capabilities. It took me, on average, 15 minutes to send one email for the majority of the time we were on our trip, which I will tell you, was highly frustrating on the few occasions I was trying to communicate urgent information with my office. But as I learned to say during the magical and exciting 2+ weeks we were gone, "only in India!"

So the flight over to India from Toronto was relatively uneventful. J and I watched a few movies, slept a little bit, and 13 hours passed uncomfortably, but not awfully. We landed at the Indira Gandhi airport, made it through customs pretty quickly (though the Indian customs official looked at J's passport picture and said to him "you are losing your hair!") and then started looking for the driver that our hotel sent to pick us up.

Here's where the fun started. Our hotel gave us VERY. SPECIFIC. DIRECTIONS. To stay inside the terminal and that the driver would find us and give us a "password" (this is to discourage scammers from trying to whisk unsuspecting tourists away from the airport and take them to a different hotel). So we waited. And waited. And did not see anyone with our names or our password. We ended up learning how to use an Indian payphone to call the hotel, and of course, they had no idea where the driver was. Finally, J had the bright idea to go outside and see if he was waiting outside, even though the email specifically said, "Stay INSIDE the terminal!" So J went outside, and SUCCESS! He found our driver! 

Only....he was not allowed to come back inside to get me.

Two large burly soldiers prevented him from coming back inside (I later learned that this was because there is an entrance fee for anyone without a valid departure ticket, which is probably why our driver was waiting outside). Fortunately, I started peeking outside and I saw him waving frantically at me.

We took a very scary ride to our hotel, which was located in Paharganj, known as the backpackers' part of town, and then walked down an even sketchier alley to get to our hotel. As we walked, we saw men carrying baskets of rocks on their heads (it was about midnight at this point in time). Ultimately, it was a good thing we saw these men with the baskets of rocks on their heads, because when we got to our room and laid down, we started to hear....digging. In the alley outside of our window. Digging. Like someone digging a grave. If we had not known about the men with rocks, we probably would have felt MORE like we were in a horror movie. But still, a little nervewracking. 

And so ended our first evening in Delhi. Stay tuned for the rest!!!!