Arriving in Dehli, India with no visa...

21 April 2007

After a 22-hour flight I arrived in the New Delhi, India. As I disembarked the plane I was slightly nervous about the whole visa thing, having been thinking about it for the last couple of hours of the flight. It was possible that they could send me back to Chicago.

I approached customs and, upon them seeing I had no visa, was told to “please wait for transit personnel by the chairs”. After a few minutes’ wait a nice young girl came by speaking pretty good English. She took my information and escorted me to the transit area.

Interesting Note: Though thought of for software, technology and phone support, I was surprised by the lack of technology here. She had carbon copies and simply wrote the info in to a large book.

Later….

The layover in Delhi is 13+ hours and I am confined to the transit area like Tom Hanks in the movie "Transit"... I have explored the transit area and found duty free shops (mostly tobacco and liquor), a Subway sandwich shop, and 2 posh lounges associated with hotels, one of which I slipped into and am writing from now—the ITC Sheraton lounge. Apparently on the last flight my phone was open and the battery wore down completely, nearly. So I have befriended the manager of this establishment and he is charging my phone in his office! Thank God!

During my repose in the Sheraton lounge I learned the game "Cricket", as the world championships were on the entire time and I watched game after game.... After that I slept on a couch for a while only to get busted by the morning crew for not really belonging to the members list for the lounge... *duh*. So I had to pay $45 to get out of trouble. Totally worth it.

At the gate waiting for my flight to Nepal, and being now daylight, I noticed that the New Delhi-The cityscape looks much like I imagined it, only the smog here makes LA look like Colorado…it's *unbelieveable*.