It’s 2:30 AM and we’ve succesfully made it to Delhi, India, navigated our way through the airport and to Kelly’s cousin’s place where we were greeted by Marie-Claude and shown to our room in their beautiful apartment in the Sarvodya Enclave.
Our first impression of India at the Chennai airport was brusque, dirty, and just a bit off. It didn’t have the same warm, welcoming atmosphere that Sri Lanka had when we first disembarked. It is, most definitely, a very different place than Sri Lanka.
After a few boring hours in the Chennai airport with it’s over-zealous air conditioning, we caught our slightly delayed flight to Delhi and made the rest of the journey without incident aside from being the only white people on the plane.
The Delhi airport is quite the contrast to Chennai’s, with thick carpeting and impressive artwork as you enter immigrations. At the visa on arrival counter we were assisted by a friendly, quick-to-laugh elderly gentlemen and then were on our way, grabbing our luggage and finding a pre-paid taxi to take us to the Prasad’s.
Getting the taxi was easy enough, but actually finding it in the rush of traffic and the literally hundreds of taxis that were sitting all over the streets outside the airport was another matter. After a bit of searching we found the taxi and the driver eagerly helped load our baggage, openned the doors for us to hop in, and promptly realized that he had lost his keys.
We helped him search the car for several minutes and he searched the surrounding area, growing increasingly worried since the car was sitting in one of the middle lanes. In the US security would have been there within minute to ask us to push the car aside, but here blocking traffic seems to just be accepted, so cars flowed around us without incident for about 10 minutes until the driver figured out that he’d dropped the keys in the trunk.
So, we’ve made it to Delhi. It’s now 3 AM and we’re unpacked and ready for sleep. We’ll see what tomorrow brings!
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