India Trip February 14th to February 16th (for alisha)

Valentines


2/14/07 Salt Lake to Atlanta to New York

Left for India today. It’s never promising to travel stand-by when the weather channel has quotes like, “The worst winter storm since the ‘Blizzard of 1856'”

We got into Atlanta early in the day and started trying to get flights. We would get listed on a flight to JFK and then get bumped and then go to the delta phones and get listed on another flight to LaGuardia and then we would get bumped from that flight. We were there all day long running from one terminal to another... getting listed... getting bumped... waiting for flights...

We missed four or five flights in all. Finally it seemed like everyone was giving up. We were waiting for one last flight to LaGuardia that would arrive at midnight in New York and then we were going to be spending the night in Atlanta. Somehow we got cleared. Sarah got first class and I got coach. But Sarah switched with the guy next to me and she came back and we sat together. We overheard a passenger whisper to her seat neighbor, “She moved back from first class to be with her boyfriend.”

2/15/07 New York to Bombay

We got into LaGuardia after midnight and thought we would just stay the night in the airport and then take a taxi over to JFK in the morning where we would get listed for the flight to India that would leave that night. Laguardia is not as big as JFK and they made us sit out in the ticketing area. The automatic doors would open anytime anyone walked by and the cold air would come in. We hunkered down with other stranded passengers and tried to sleep. That was nearly impossible and we ended up catching a taxi at four in the morning over to JFK.

Sarah looked like a Heaven's Gate victim.





JFK was an absolute mess. The ticketing area was so packed that you couldn’t move. It was like trying to get to the stage at a concert. But instead of a collective euphoria of fans there was a collective disdain for airlines and their personnel. People were yelling, throwing tantrums, and mocking air port personnel. We were in a line for about two hours that wasn’t moving. We finally got to the front and got listed on a flight to India. It was the same flight we should have left on the night before had we been in New York to catch it. The flight was delayed and was set to leave at three o’clock that afternoon which meant we would get into india about six hours earlier. Unfortunately, we were more than six hours early for our flight so they couldn’t print our boarding passes to get through security. We had to wait about an hour and a half and fortunately I was able to sneak to the front of the line and the lady who originally helped us printed off our boarding passes. Waiting in the line again would take four or more hours to get through. So... we finally got through the gates to wait for six hours. We found a wing under construction and set up camp in the sunlight of a window and fell asleep. It was pleasant enough once we were in the airport waiting for a flight that we were for sure going to get on.

Three O’clock came and went however and we didn’t get on the plane and take off until six or so at night. We flew out of New York and were in and out of consciousness for our thirteen or fourteen hour flight to Bombay India.

We had a twelve and a half hour time change while flying so when we finally arrived in India it was the evening of the 16th.

There were shanty towns surrounding the airport built right up next to the airport fences. The plane flew right over them. The forecast from the pilot was “warm and smoky.”

Sarah had to use the restroom and she went in to the airport bathroom and was followed by a bathroom attendant. We hadn’t yet exchanged our money and the bathroom attendant was upset that she didn’t get any rupees from Sarah. According to Sarah the attendant would show you into the stall and show you where everything was: flush handle, toilet paper, toilet and then they would wait right outside the stall signing a sweet song to sooth you while you went to the bathroom and then they would assist you in washing your hands (actually scrubbing your hands for you like you would a little child) and then drying your hands.

We didn’t have reservations anywhere so we walked up to a travel booth and some guy booked a hotel for us in downtown Bombay. (We tried calling it Mumbai for the majority of the trip but everyone there still calls it Bombay.) We pre-paid for our taxi and walked out into India. It’s difficult to describe this. Video doesn’t do it accurately. Neither do pictures. It’s just India through and through. Taxi’s everywhere, people everywhere. I recently read this explanation in a book about Bangkok and it reminded me of India:

“When Socialism is pushed beyond a certain point, it becomes totalitarianism. Capitalism, on the other hand, if carried to its extreme, becomes anarchy... The constant construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction, the ceaseless commerce, matter-eating pollution, brain-numbing noise, and twenty-four-hour-a-day traffic gridlock... to call it a city of contradictions is worse than a cliche, it’s a trite superfluity, not merely because it’s so patently obvious but because there’s a sense in which virtually every city is a city of contradictions... straddling the boundary between acrid and sweet, soft and hard, sacred and profane.”



Our taxi driver took us through the city to our hotel and had some trouble finding it. We had no idea where it would be. All we had was a piece of paper from the travel booth that said, “Hotel Cowis near electric hotel.” Finally our taxi driver found it and we retreated to the safety of our most expensive room of our trip 2700 rupees. 62 Dollars.

We were quite excited to have a shower since we hadn’t had a shower since Valentines morning.