An 'interesting' Journey

In the first place - apologies that I haven't been on here for a while to update the blog. Things have simply been so busy. This means that there is loads I should have been writing about - but not enough time to do so. Ironic, eh?

Anyway - now is perhaps the ideal time to pick this up again as I have come back to India and I'll try and report on here what we've been doing. Was rather a long and 'interesting' (I use the word advisedly) journey.

Wed July 15th 2015 We leave home at 0400 - another early start on top of a manic weekend when we ran VX for a full 24 hours non stop at Gilwell 24. Got to the airport OK. Got checked in OK. Everything going smoothly - can it last?. Great flight with Etihad and then we get to Abu Dhabi and everything goes to pot as we meet Jet Air. Flight is delayed due to late arrival of the plane that is due to take us to Delhi. Should be boarding half an hour late - this gets later and later and there is talk of the flight being cancelled. Some people are saying it's cancelled, some are saying it might be going. Some are saying it might still be going but have already started rebooking passengers with families! Lots of shouty shouty people getting angry with the beleagured staff and getting us nowhere. Mind you - it would be helpful if they could just keep us informed. Finally they give us vouchers for free refreshments just as the young lady says we are going to board now. And board we do and we get to Delhi - about five minutes after our connection has left!

OK, so we go through immigration. We go through baggage reclaim and customs and then go to the domestic transfer queue like I did last time but the guy there says we need to go to the Jet Air desk and to do that we need to go along to the end and up to the second floor. So we go and join another queue, this is for departures.

We get to the Jet Air desk to find a mass of humanity round it as all the shouty shouty people from Abu Dhabi try to get rebooked. I can see at the other side of the desk there (where I had to go when my flight was cancelled in January) that there are much fewer people so I ask the security guard how to get there - we can't until we have a ticket so we stand patiently among all the shouty shouty people and eventually get served. Because there are two of us there is nothing until 3 pm. OK, that's fine. Not a problem. The guy is very helpful and even checks us in and issues our boarding cards so we don't have to go through check in. All we have to do is go to baggage drop. So now we go back to the security guard with our boarding cards. Can we go through? No - as the flight is not until 3pm we aren't allowed through until 10.00. That's an hour and a half we have to sit in a small waiting area with no toilet facilities, or food and drink. We also have no rupees and will have to find somewhere to change some money. I warned Tom - it was chaotic when I came last time, too!

We should have arrived at 0735 in Chandigarh. This means we lose a whole day of time with VX India. Oh - and the wifi isn't working so I have to hope that the texts I have sent get through to Suman OK. Laptop says I am connected and so does the iPad but neither of them will load anything so I can't contact via FB or Whatsapp. Everything was going fine until we met JetAir - a bit like last time really …

Well at just before 10 we went through, changed some money and then went through security. And now we are airside - it's just like home - Accessorize, WH Smith, Eary Learning Centre, TopShop, McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut …

We went to McDonalds thinking that is fairly standard fare - but it is very different. No beef, of course, so we went for the spicy McChicken and yes, it is spicy. Brilliant.

We killed time easy enough and believe it or not - the plane left on time and landed on time!

Suman was waiting for us - he'd not got any of my messages since Abu Dhabi so had arrived at 07.30 this morning and had been trying to get hold of me to find out what time we'd been arriving. He's been struggling all day - but since Abu Dhabi I had no wifi so I had texted him, but he hadn't got them. Anyway - we got here, after a 31 hour journey. Npw to chill ready for work tomorrow ...

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