Arrival in India

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After a pleasant week in New York City visiting with with my family, Priya and I boarded an Emirates Airlines flight from JFK to Dubai. Somehow, even though we booked our tickets 6 months in advance, we ended in in the very back row, right next to a bank of lavatories. The
main problem there was the traffic. But, we did a good thing listing our food preference as "Hindu
Meal". All of the special meals were brought out first, easily 45 minutes before the rest of the meals. So, we ate and settled in to try and sleep before many passengers had even gotten their
dinner.

I had hoped to sleep on the flight, but being tall with long legs - in regular class - it was virtually
impossible to find a comfortable position. I may have slept for 2 hours or so, and I entertained
myself the rest of the time watching TV and movies on Emirates' awesome seat back entertainment center. (The have about 100 movies available - I watched the disappointing "Mr and Mrs Smith", as well as several TV shows, tons of music, and a cool feature that tells you all about your trip - including location and time-to-arrival, as well forward-facing and ground-facing cameras.) After about 12 and a half hours, we arrived in Dubai, anxious to get out of that airplane. But, by some cruel mistake by the ground crew, the airplane parked at the wrong gate
and we not able to disembark. After 45 minutes of taxiing around, we parked at the right gate and exited. This was trouble for us because we already had a tight connection (50 minutes) and we hadn't planned on 45 minutes of needless taxiing. Fortunately, the Emirates people knew about our connection, and met us at the gate and escorted us to the waiting Hyderabad-bound airplane. We made it to our seats and settled in for the 3:30 ride to Hyderabad.

The flight was uneventful, but, after the flight from New York, the mad dash through the Dubai airport, and this flight, we were ready to be done with travelling for the day. Unfortunately, the Hyderabad Immigration and Customs officials had other plans. We walked from the airplane down a series of hallways that dumped us into a room with probably 400 other travellers. There were so many people packed into this small room that the various queues all twisted together. We stood for what seemed like ages (actual time: 1:45) until we reached the desk, and our passports were stamped. Customs was not a big deal and finally, about 20 hours after leaving New York, we were in India. We quickly found Priya's parents, loaded the car, and were off to their apartment.

My first impressions of India, from this 5am ride in from the airport, were largely what I expected from reading other peoples' blogs. Yes, there was a large noisy throng at the airport, yes there were beggars that quickly picked me out of the crowd, yes there are cows and dogs on the streets.
One thing that I found curious that I haven't seen anyone else mention was the road construction workers. At 5am these people were out working basically in the dark (they had a few small lanterns which I think were more for traffic to see them than for them to see their work). These construction workers were not wearing reflective vests and working behind cones and barriers, and we see all the time in the US. The men were wearing slacks and shirts, and the women saris, and they were going about their labor - shovelling gravel, pushing wheelbarrows, even operating a jackhammer - barefoot, in the middle of the road, in the dark. Amazing.

Today, Priya and I are working on our jetlag. We're going to go for a drive this afternoon so I can see the city in the light. More to come soon...

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