Categories
2008/2009 Nepal & India

Day 0: Perth – Dubai – Delhi

Saturday 29 November 2008

We didn’t get much sleep last night; packing, checking, re-packing, re-checking.  Craig picked us up from home at 03:00 when we said our final farewells to the cats and the chickens for the next three months.

Perth International Airport was its usual sleepy self.  When we arrived only a few counters were open attending to a smattering of travellers, our counter was not open so we had to sit and wait.  Eventually our Emirates check-in opened and the man shuffled some seating allocations to ensure we got an exit row.  It happened to be immediately next to the lavatories but none-the-less it was nice during the flight to stretch out your legs to their fullest extent, even if you did end up kicking some poor unsuspecting person waiting to use the toilets in the shins!

Dubai Airport was huge!  We arrived 20 minutes early, so had well over three hours to explore and wander through the plethora of duty free stores.  Eventually they all started to look the same so we went and sank into the lounges near our departure gate and watched the masses wander by.  We started counting the Westerners flying with us to Delhi, this was easily achieved with the fingers on one hand.  Were the recent events in Mumbai to blame for this?

The flight departed spot on time (2/2 on time departures with Emirates; QANTAS take note)  This time the flight was more crowded and was a lot like some sort of flying creche with a load of screaming babies and kids running up and down the aisles (the only time this stopped was when a very large Muslim man layed out his prayer mat in the aisle to conduct his devotional prayers and bowing.  As soon as he was packed up, the kids were back in the aisles).  The flight arrived early (QANTAS take note again) and our taxi driver was waiting for us on arrival to take us directly to the hotel.

On the way from the airport we noticed a few differences from our 2006 trip:
1) There was much less visible police and security presence in the airport and surrounds and given the recent events in Mumbai and the State elections we weren’t too sure this was necessarily a good thing.
2) The amount of construction that is going on in preparation for the 2010 Commonwealth Games is phenomenal.  The amount of time, effort and money being spent must be huge.  With all the work still going on at night, we bagan to wonder if it would all take shape and e ready in time.
3) Things just seemd much more quiet than last time we were here?  Maybe we were better prepared?  Maybe we were just used to it?

We made it to the hotel and our bookings were all correct, so we went up to our comfrtable room and went to bed.  It took a little over 21 hours since leaving home and we are finally back in Delhi, exhausted but here.

We have three days in Delhi, flying to Kathmandu on 02 December 2008.