India Part Deux

Don't let google maps fool you, India is not an easy country to get around it. Something can be 9 km away yet take two hours to get to. For this reason alone I was fairly annoyed when I discovered my school program was a Wednesday to a Wednesday, effectively meaning I had to take two weeks vacation but would have little to no time to see anything outside the program. Dashed were my determinations that "next time in India I'm seeing the Himalayas!" Gone was the wish of seeing Varanasi, Udapur ... let alone the Maldives {sigh}.

Although our program was a little ridiculously planned, Ana and I wanted to make the most of our time--and money--in India and flew over the weekend before the program started.

Saturday morning we hopped on a 10am flight to Dubai, sitting across the aisle from each other, and were on our way! The food on Emirates was amazing, but I didn't really understand how it is so highly ranked with such tiny, old seats. Ah well! I watched a few chick flicks, tried to sleep and ended up having a fairly long conversation with a man while we both stretched our legs. I'm always amazed by how open people are when they travel compared to in everyday life; we talked about his family, jobs, India, culture, religion and life motivations all while drinking water and doing leg exercises!

We arrived in Dubai with a little time to spare and both wanted to freshen up, but unfortunately for me they made us check our backpacks (total bogus) and I had little in the way of toiletries  I guess, what's another 5 hours when you've already gone 15 traveling with recycled air? I also have to say, walking around the Dubai airport spotting Pinkberry, fresh Lindt chocolate, oud shops and Starbucks that I was already excited for the return trip.

[caption id="attachment_4399" align="alignright" width="210"] A few of the many colorful and vibrant saris in ONE shop in H Block, Delhi.[/caption]

We boarded our next flight, and close to delirium began laughing at the asinine music Emirates plays on their flights. The only image I could conjure up was a cat mixing a record, which didn't help control my sleep-deprived laughter (nor did my second viewing of Pitch Perfect.) FINALLY at 2pm on Sunday and after collecting our luggage (fingers crossed it came too!) we landed in Delhi and made our way to my friend's house.

On the way to their little corner of Delhi, we called them only to discover they weren't expecting us until next month--what?? Luckily they were there in the area (they travel often for work) and were still fine with having us come. It was so wonderful to catch up on life's coming and goings, eat a bit of authentic Indian food, visit a few shops until closing and sleeeeep horizontally after 22 hours of traveling.

Here's to India Part Deux.