New Delhi -
8th September, 2005 We flew with
British Airways from Heathrow. We were a little worried
about the strike by Gate Gourmet workers might flair up again
and delay our departure, but luck was on our side and there were
no disruptions. We used the Express check-in machine,
where we stuck in the credit card we had bought the tickets
with, and the machine asked us what seats we wanted and printed
out our boarding tickets. Simple. All we had to do then was take
our check-in luggage to the fast drop off, where there was no
queue, unlike the normal check-in counters. The
plane was not full, and we had a spare seat next to us, always
an advantage. As we had hoped for, we also had the
personal video screens on the back of the seat in front, meaning
we could watch the films of our choice. The only problem
with this was that the system broke down shortly after take off,
and had to be re-started. Must have been running a
Microsoft operating system, I assumed. We were served with
plenty of wine and beer, and, unusually, quite a bit of
water. That's one of my main gripes about beverages on
airplanes, they tell you to drink plenty of water to keep
hydrated, then they normally only give you a couple of small
glasses of water! Today we were served by the bottle, and
we could get as much as we wanted. At last, somebody has seen
sense. Lunch was a very acceptable chicken casserole and a
chocolate sweet accompanied by the usual bread roll, butter and
side salad. Things seem to be improving on the airline
food front. The eight hour
flight passed quickly, particularly with a choice of 12 films to
watch. Landed at Delhi
International at just after 11pm local time, four and a half
(yes, and a half!) hours ahead of British Summer Time. The queue
at immigration was long, but moving surprisingly quickly.
The queue for Indian nationals moved on a lot quicker so we
joined that one, along with a few other tourists, and were
through to baggage collection before midnight. We waited
by the appropriate carousel for quite some time before we
discovered that some kind, helpful person had removed our bags
and placed them with many others in a big heap on the other side
of the carousel. Thanks for that, whoever you are.
The trolleys here are a lot narrower than any we've seen
previously, we particularly noticed because our bikes, in their
bags, kept falling off. This is quite a surprise,
considering the amount of luggage that Indians normally travel
with, most of their household contents, it seems sometimes. In
the arrivals hall, we booked and paid 200 Rupees for a pre-paid
taxi, to take us to the Tara Inn, a medium priced hotel near the
airport. Getting a pre-paid taxi is something we would recommend
to everyone. I'll tell you what happened the last time we
flew in to Delhi. We had intended on catching the Ex-servicemen's
Bus, a cheap service that takes you right into Connaught Place,
the big circle at the centre of New Delhi, but we were persuaded
by an unscrupulous taxi driver that it was no longer running,
and besides, he would take us to Connaught Place for only 120
Rupees. We hadn't booked a hotel, but told him we ha a
reservation at the Jucaso, a hotel Rita had stayed in before,
but on the way he stopped off at a tourist agency, apparently to
ask directions. What taxi driver in Delhi doesn't know
where Connaught Place is? The guy in the agency then
pretended to phone the Jucaso, and, surprise surprise, found out
it was fully booked, but he could offer us a room at an
excellent hotel nearby. We refused, politely but firmly,
and got back in the taxi, saying please take us to Connaught
Place, like he had agreed to in the first place. But then,
of course, he said he didn't know where it was, and it was a big
place. After he had stopped at another two hotels and
tried to persuade us they were the ideal place for us to stay,
we got fed up with his antics, paid him the 120 rupees and got
out and walked the 3 km to Connaught Place. This is
apparently a very common experience, so be warned. Back
to our current visit. We had already decided that we would not
put our bikes through two more flights, to Leh and back, so we
checked them into the left luggage facility, hidden a short
distance from the arrivals hall on the other side of the car
park, and said we'd be back in three weeks to pick them
up. Hopefully they will still be there, it didn't look
like the most secure left luggage facility I've ever seen, but
we got a receipt and I live in hope. We
then followed our allotted taxi driver through the car park and
outside to a side street. Apparently it would cost an
extra hundred Rupees if he parked within the airport
boundaries. Although we had booked to go to the Tara Inn,
and the driver said he knew where it was, a short while after we
set off, he started asking us the name of the hotel and where
was it! Here we go again, I thought. He took us to a
number of hotels, some with vaguely similar names, but some with
a name not even remotely similar and tried to persuade us this
is the hotel we had asked for. Eventually, more by
accident than design, we found the Tara Hotel, as it had now
been renamed. Negotiated a small discount for a fairly
nice en-suite room for 650 Rupees, with a satellite TV and air
con and a ceiling fan as well. Back
to Itinerary 9th
September, 2005 Delhi Slept
in until 11am, takes a while to adjust to the local time.
Hotel manager told us how to get into city centre, go down to
the main road, jump over (I presume he meant cross to the other
side) and flag down a auto-rickshaw. This turned out to be
easier said than done. We found the main easily enough, but the
central reservation was a mass of road building works, and we
could see no way of getting through to the other side, and it
was certainly too big to jump! So we flagged down a
rickshaw on our side, thinking, surely it wont take too long for
it to turn around and go back into the city. How wrong could we
be! It was a good 15 minutes of fairly fast motoring
around numerous corners before we passed by our starting point,
but on the other side of the road. That explains why he
refused to take less than 120 rupees for the trip when the
manager had said pay no more than 100. The
rickshaw driver was very friendly, as we usually found them to
be, and pointed out a few sights on the way, such as Gandhi and
he eleven wise men. Once in Connaught Place, we headed
straight for a restaurant for our first meal of the day, a
little late to call it breakfast at 3pm, so we'll call it a late
brunch. The United Tea Rooms is a popular place,
frequented by foreigners and well to do Indians. I
opted for the Murg Changezi, described as tandoori chicken
cooked in tomato gravy, cream, chillies and choicest
herbs. Rita's fancy was taken by the Thai Green Curry, and
we both partook of a pitcher of draught Kingfisher lager.
After the meal, we sat and chatted about what we needed to do in
Delhi before our flight to Leh tomorrow, so we had a couple of
bottles of Kingfisher to help the mind flow. It was oly
when we asked for the bill that we discovered it was happy hour
on Kingfisher, buy 2 get 1 free, and they wouldn't let us take
the bottle with us, so we were forced (okay, not physically) to
stay and consume a third. Shopping
list - malaria tablets - we didn't need any for Ladakh but we
need them for the rest of India; power cord for my laptop
- I don't like carrying around power leads with UK style plugs
and using adaptors, they take up too much space, better to buy a
power lead with the local plug on it; rechargeable batteries -
meant to get these in UK but forgot. Found all we wanted
in and around Connaught Place within an hour or so. Just
about to get a rickshaw back to our hotel when we spotted a
South Indian restaurant serving masala dosas, one of our
favourite Indian meals. We just had to have ne. They
are like large pancakes but made with a rice batter, and
normally filled with a green potato curry. Not the best we
have ad, but we knew we couldn't expect to get any in Ladakh, so
beggars cant be choosers. Rickshaw
back to our hotel cost 100 Rupees, taking about 40 minutes
through the evening traffic. Back at the hotel we caught
up with the news on BBC World, after all its been so long since
we left England, anything could have happened, like England
winning at cricket. Strike me down, they got off to a good
start to final test in the Ashes. Back
to Itinerary Saturday
10th September, 2005 New Delhi to Leh Up
at 3:45am to get ready for 6:05am flight to Leh. Had
managed to get a little sleep, but our body clocks are still
prettymuch on UK time, so it felt just about the right time to
start going to sleep when we got up! Taxi
to the domestic terminal, quickly dropped us off and disappeared
before .we realised we needed to be at the other domestic
terminal, a short distance away. Even though it was 4:30am
it was very warm, so instead of walking the several hundred
metres to the other terminal, we opted for another taxi.
Bartered the fare down from 160 rupees to a more realistic 50,
and were soon entering the Air India domestic terminal. We
were very surprised to find how quiet the terminal was, even at
this hour, and we were through the security checks, check-in and
into the departure lounge within 15 minutes. Must be a
record, especially in India. Our
flight was delayed for unexplained reasons, but we were aloft by
6:30. We thought it was only going to be an hour and a
half flight, so we didn't expect too much on the food front, but
were surprised by a breakfast of mixed fruit salad, mango
yoghurt, doughnuts with curry sauce (this is India!) served with
a couscous like substance, and a croissant with butter and
jam. Stuffed. We didn't realise there was an
intermediate stop at Jammu, so when we landed there we were a
little confused by the green fields surrounding the airport, as
were a good many of our foreign traveling companions. I though
Ladakh was dry and arid and sandy? We were soon corrected
by an air steward who asked us to remain in our seats and we
would soon be taking off for Leh. Phew, we hadn't got on
the wrong plane in Delhi after all. Back
to Itinerary |
