Arriving in Delhi

I arrived in Delhi at 10pm the local time. It was surprisingly foggy. I couldn’t see much of anything from the airplane window. Navigating through the airport was easy enough because everyone was herded from the gate directly to customs. The customs official quizzed me about from family origins because I marked that I was of “Non-Indian Origins”. He insisted to know because my name is half Indian…(Matthew is Indian according to him).

From customs, I was pushed along to the duty free shop. I grabbed a 1000ml bottle of Jack Daniels to “hold me over” but I couldn’t pass up an equal sized bottle of Jameson for $20. I’m not too sure how I am going to travel with this to Ahmadabad. Baggage claim was adjacent to the duty free shop. Carts were plenty and easy to find so it wasn’t a competition to have one. My bags come through the carousel in a timely manner so at least I didn’t have to endure additional stress of waiting too long.

I pushed my cart through the final customs checkpoint. A man collected the stub from my customs form to show that I had gone through the process. I wanted to take some pictures while in the airport but scattered men with assault rifles made me feel like I should wait until later. After the checkpoint, there was a booth to exchange currency. My KJWW guides said to pick up 10s, 20s, 50s, and 100s. They had none, only 500s and 1000s. I decided to wait until the hotel to exchange.

Finally I walked through barricaded path where all the drivers stand with their signs until I found my name “Matthew Kaleta” on a large sign for the Ashok Country Resort. My driver was a short skinny man who looked at least 40 years old and wore an all white suit. He greeted me with a smile and asked how to pronounce my name. I’m used to pronouncing my last name for people, but to explain the pronunciation of my first name was a first. He encouraged me to exchange money at yet another booth and they too were fresh out of the small stuff. Now I feel like they intentionally don’t have small bills to force me to leave a large tip, now I know I am going to hotel for the hotel to exchange.

My driver asks to push my cart and I allow him to. We exit the airport and it quite chilly – about 50 deg F and humid. The fog is somewhat dense and visibility is limited. It makes everything seem much more mysterious. Where we walked out lots of cars and small SUV’s are waiting. The SUV’s look like covered versions of the landscaping Gators and the cars are large but bulbous in shape. They look very cartoonish. None of them look new. All are very old and worn.

Dark sky compliant site lighting must not have made its way to Delhi yet. The area is lit by very tall poles with large clusters of high-pressure sodium fixtures (the kind that create very yellow/orange light). In the fog these glare bombs casts everything in an orange haze. I can’t see farther than 100ft in front of me. My driver and I are walking to his car and it takes us about 5 minutes to get to it. We pass a motorbike parking lot and there must have been a thousand motorbikes tightly parked in that lot.

We reach the car and I decide to let the driver transfer my luggage to the car. I’m curious to see how he handles my big bag (O’Hare weighed it at 66lbs.) The driver manages just fine. I walk over to the side of the vehicle and I receive my first wake up call. I went to the driver’s door, which is usually our passenger door. Oops.

Thankfully the vehicle is a decent sized SUV, equivalent to a Nissan Pathfinder, because the potholes are so bad it feels like we are off roading. In the car, my pronunciation of ‘Ahmadabad’ is corrected (I pronounced Ahm-da-bad, it was corrected to Aim-dabad). Exiting the airport reminded me of leaving a crowded parking lot after a concert. There are no lanes and everyone is going their own way. My driver expertly escapes this area and merges onto the expressway. Here I find that lane markers are not really lanes but suggested guidelines. I particularly enjoyed when a large SUV wanted to pass a motorbike and another SUV that were driving side by side in a 2 lane area and he wailed on his horn and drive right between them. The drive lasted about 10 minutes to the hotel.

The internet availability is spotty and I was only able to send out my email about arriving before it stopped. Today I am going to share a driver with a man from my hotel to sightsee in the new part of the city.

(I wrote this post in Word when internet was not available. These pictures are mostly from my day in Delhi. Descriptions to follow.)