Arriving in India

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A last catch up with family by phone at the boarding gate and I climbed on board the Emirates A380 airbus. This was quite a revelation. My seat was a window seat in the 4th row back next to the stairs up to the cocktail lounge and upper level. The plane was very light and airy with lots of presumably fake walnut finish around. Hostesses were all beautifully dressed and immaculately turned out. The plane was very smooth and quiet and we were very regularly fed and watered. A first for me was the onboard WiFi which I must admit I was quite sceptical about until I tried it. It was fast and reliable and the ability to send texts and WhatsApp messages with photos from 40,000 feet was amazing. Stop over in Dubai was unremarkable apart from seeing the throngs of people around the gold jewellery shop in duty free! I finally met up with most of the group who are on the Blazing Trails holiday. They were waiting at the boarding gate. Not much chance to get to know each other thoughts as we shortly boarded the plane and we're all sitting in edifferent rows in the plane.

This plane was a Boeing Dreamliner B777. It was jammed full of passengers and seats were not spacious. Unfortunately my entertainment screen didn't work properly. The hostess also missed our rows for drinks orders and they had run out of menus. Not a great start and completely different from the morning flight. It was also very noisy, both from the passengers and also plane.

Arrival in Delhi was unsurprisingly chaotic. I failed to understand that just because a queue has a sign say 'e-visas’, that is not necessarily what it means. Half an hour later I joined the correct queue and waited another hour to have my e-visa processed. I then tried to find my luggage but it was nowhere to be seen. It turns out that the visa had taken me so long that the luggage staff had decided that I wasn't coming and had put it in a side room. Lucky I found it! Then to withdraw some cash from an ATM. After trying 3 machines without success I finally managed to find one working. However, in my brain fog of 12 hours travel and at 3am, I withdrew £30 instead of £300. Needless to say, that didn't get me very far! Then it was into a taxi and a relatively uneventful trip to the main station. Delhi is beautiful and very green. Lots of interest buildings and a chance to get to know some others on the trip.

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