Traveling to Bangalore

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Whew! So much has happened already on this trip to Bangalore (or Bengaluru if you prefer) that I've decided to write a blog about it. This way my mom can keep careful track of me, my friends can see what hijinks I get up to, and maybe other people can benefit from the experiences I had traveling from North Carolina, USA to Bangalore, Karnataka, India.

My flight schedule was: 2-hour flight from NC to JFK (Friay afternoon), 7-hour flight to BRU (arrive Saturday morning), 8-hour flight to Delhi (arrive Saturday night), then (next Sunday morning) a 2-hour flight to Bangalore. Since I did not book my own tickets--they are courtesy of my Smart Structures program--I didn't even notice that I was overnighting in Delhi for about 7 hours. Luckily I was traveling with two other participants all the way from JFK so we exchanged emails about how we would deal with that layover. Not that the layover went as planned, but I'll get there. ;D

The flights were mostly uneventful, as was the airport in Brussels. I was interested in comparing my flight to Brussels, (operated by American) and my flight from Brussels (operated by Jet Airways). The second flight was definitely more comfortable, but it also just felt more luxurious. The AA flight had two movies, but the screens were in the center of the aisle so I, being tall and sitting in the window seat, could not see a lot of the screens. The food was okay, but mostly it just felt cramped and I'm glad I slept for some of that flight to get it over with.

In comparison, my second flight was GLORIOUS. There were screens in the backs of the seats with Hollywood movies, Bollywood movies, games, music, the whole shebang. The quality of the food on both flights was about the same, your usual airplane meal and snack, but I was delighted to be fed. I haven't been fed on a plane since I was five or so. I watched most of the Bollywood movie Robot, of which I had seen a few hilarious clips before this trip, and would have finished it except I accidentally exited the movie and reentering started you from the beginning with no good fast-forward option. So instead I watched "Always Kabhi Kabhi" ("Always Sometimes") which is similar to High School Musical in style.

Things really took a turn for the adventurous in Delhi. There we were supposed to get off the plane, pass through immigration, get our bags, pass through customs, then check back in through a domestic transfer point to get back into the secured domestic area where we could get to our transit hotel, an hourly hotel within the airport. Unfortunately, we managed to get through immigration without a fuss, passing under some cool statues of huge hands in Buddhist or Hindu signs, but it was getting our bags that gave us trouble. Apparently the baggage handling system in Brussels broke down, and our plane was forced to leave with a large number of bags missing. This translated to my first true glance into Indian culture.

You see, it seems that one does not queue up in India. One MOBS. When people realized bags were missing, everyone flocked to the Baggage Enquiries desk, manned by a couple truly unlucky people that day. People were angry, voicing frustrated complaints in tones of voices that would probably have someone intervening in America with calming comments. The paperwork process to report our bags was roundabout and time-consuming: once you got a paper from the desk, you filled it out, gave it back to them while they filled out another form that they gave back to you to take down to a guy 50 feet to the left so he could stamp it and you could bring it back to the desk. This meant that this angry mob was stuck in front of that desk for hours. I hung out at the back. I wasn't going anywhere. Why get entangled? I was ridiculously amused, though, especially after they ran out of forms, went to get more, and were passing them out from the front of the mob. You've seen footage of the stock market, a huge group of agitated people waving papers in the air? Yeah, it was like that. I saw two guys wich a stack of papers almost go into a tug-of-war game and rip the whole stack. So, so amusing. And so different from anything I'd see back home.

After about two hours of hanging near the back of the mob and chatting with friendly Indian people who told me foods to eat, where to visit, Patrick and I (Yao did not check any bags so he had already gone to the hotel) decided we wouldn't bother to go to the hotel, we'd just crash the terminal. So we "went through" customs--it was deserted and we had no bags to be checked anyway--and into a really nice terminal. I partook in a sponge-bath in one of the bathrooms because I felt pretty gross and needed to wake up. There were ladies cleaning in the bathroom, and when I asked them if I could dunk my head they smiled and nodded. But when I tried to wipe down the sink after I was done they shooed me out and looked a bit put out. One of the Indian professors I spoke with tonight said that Indian people take hospitality very seriously, and I think that me trying to clean up after myself might have been insulting their hospitality. Or taking their job. Either way, I think they weren't super sad to see me go.

In the terminal I bought a tikka sandwich (it's like chicken salad with curry and onions) that was packaged exactly the same as they sell tuna sandwiches from gas stations in the states, and some water. Things are cheap here: the sandwich and water cost less than 200 Rs (rupees) which is around $3, and I probably got really overcharged for both. A bit later Patrick and I relocated to our gate, and I bought 2 samosas and a bottle of mango juice for around the same price. The mango juice was super-sweet, just as I expected. It tasted like someone pureed some mangos, then extricated all the water they possibly could. I think there were over 100g of sugar in that drink, but it was de-ri-cious. The samosas were also tasty, and the guy at the coffee shop even heated them up in the microave, or as they say "made it hot." I tried to practice eating properly, with only my right hand, but I think my technique is still a bit foreign because I was biting chunks out of the samosas and I saw a guy tearing hunks off and dipping them in the provided ketchup. I'll have to try that next time.

After that, it was simply a matter of waiting before we boarded our last flight to Bangalore. Three other APSS participants were due to fly with us on that flight, and they only barely made the connection due to baggage/customs/etc. I don't remember much of the flight--I hadn't slept much, or well, in the last 36 hours so I sank into REM awhile into the flight and only woke up when we touched down. And then I was in Bangalore.

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