In order to utilize the time I had in Delhi as well as taking advantage of the fact that I don't work until 11am, I booked my return flight for Monday morning. The flight was scheduled for 6:05am, which meant that my day started at the early hour of 4am. I was in a hotel about a 5 minute walk from the train station, from where I could get on an airport express metro train. At 4:15 this morning, I check out of the hotel. And that is where the fun began. As I walked out, there was a taxi driver just waiting for anyone to come out of any of the neighbourhood hotels. He offered to take me to the train station (again, only a 5 minute walk) for 100 rupees. I may be a white American girl, but I have been in India long enough to know the going transit rates. A bike rickshaw came up and we agreed on 10 rupees to the train station (I paid him 20 to be generous).
I headed through the train station to where I found the metro entrance yesterday, but could see that it was locked. Luckily, at this point, it was still about 4:25, the metro was supposed to leave at 4:45. I wandered for a few minutes, turned down an autorickshaw driver's offer to take me to the airport (no thanks....) before finding someone who spoke semi-English. I was pointed to another entrance, across the street, where I could enter the metro station. After going through security and buying a ticket, I headed to the platform. Mini heartattack moment. The scrolling info screen said 47 minutes until departure, but it was only 4:40 and there was a train sitting there, though its doors were closed. A couple minutes later, a train employee emerged and opened the doors. By 4:50, we were on our way.
The metro was advertised as taking 19 minutes to get from the train station to the airport, which should have left me more than enough time to get through the airport. 30 minutes later, I arrived at the airport terminal 40 minutes before departure (20 minutes until gate closure). A bit tighter than I like to cut it. I hurried to the check in counter which of course was at the other end of the terminal, for a boarding pass. Check in was the one good part of the morning. I had a middle seat towards the back of the plane. The counter agent offered a seat 'towards the front' and gave me the choice of aisle or window. Now, a bit about Air Asia; as a budget airline they nickel and dime flyers for everything. There is no first/business class, but the first few rows cost on average about $15 more (when the flight itself is only $50-75). When my boarding pass printed, it had seat 1F on it. Yep, front row, lots of legroom, easy on and off the plane.
Next was security. Of course, I had only about 15 minutes at this point, and for the first time in India, there were lines. As I mentioned in a previous post, in India, passengers are frisked each and every time, which worked to my advantage today. There are separate lines for men and women, and the women's lines always move faster/aren't as long. I got through security in a few minutes, but when I reached the other side, and my bags came through, I realized that the ticket counter didn't give me any of the mandatory hand baggage tags that must be stamped by security. Without these, security wouldn't give me my bags, nor were they at all interested in helping me get tags. After I raised a bit of a stink (I know, me....temper....no....) they pointed me a ways down the aisle where I could get the dumb little tags. I put them on my bags, had them stamped and started through the airport.
It was about 5:35 now and I had been planning on grabbing breakfast at the airport. Luckily, there was a little shop that I had to basically go through to get to the gate, so I grabbed a gatorade and chocolate bar for the trip. Now, I had to find the gate. Of course the Delhi airport is not small or easy to navigate. My plane was taking off from all the way at gate 45. I haven't run since hurting my ankle back in June, and I knew that doing so would be a decision I would regret. I walked the fastest almost jog I have in a long time and made it to the gate at final call. This is where the front row seat was really nice. I walked right on, put my bag in the bin and relaxed with my gatorade and chocolate. The next 2.5 hours were fine, I attempted, mostly unsuccessfully to sleep, and were arrived in Bangalore a bit early.
One of the things that I miss the most about home is transportation, namely that I can get around easily at home. Bangalore does not have a metro, so the only options are the overcrowded, hot, disgusting buses, or taxis. I tried to get an Uber first, but for some reason, the app was not assigning a car nearby. I figured I would take an airport taxi. When I did this a couple weeks ago, the cab had a meter and charged a fair rate. Today, a driver excitedly offered me a ride. As I got in the cab and told him where I was going, he didn't know the business park. Bad sign. Taxi drivers who don't know one of the biggest business parks in the city obviously don't know the city well. As we started to leave the airport property, he handed me a paper, on which he had the trip details. The guy wanted 1700 rupees - the normal metered fare, whether taxi or uber, is around 1000. No way. My temper showed once again. I told him that a fair rate was 1000 and he refused to take me. He turned around to the airport and I took an uber afterall.
I think the uber driver was a nice guy, he tried to have a conversation in Hindi. Unfortunately, I know about 3 words of Hindi. I knew that traffic would be bad in the morning, but I had no idea what Bangalore rush hour really was. The 25 mile trip took 2 hours and I arrived at the hotel at 11am. Luckily, everyone is late to work on Mondays and several others were caught in traffic. I grabbed a quick shower and headed to an 11 hour work day.
So there you go, today was truely an adventure in India, full of cultural quirks and oddities. Happy Monday all.
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