Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore

Sleepless in New Delhi

It’s 5 am here (6:34 pm Montreal time) and I’m wide awake. Stepping off the plane last night around 9:30 pm after a daze of 14 hours of random sleep in tight spaces was a relief.

But what we stepped into is an asthma sufferer’s nightmare.  At first the pervasive smell seems like a wood fire in the distance.  In the airport, I wasn’t truly prepared for thick soup of toxins that hit me as we walked outside. I could only manage short shallow breaths and even that caused burning in my throat within minutes.
The terminal for international flights coming into New Delhi is new – presumably for the recent Commonwealth Games that took place here. It’s beautiful and clean – a stark contrast to the air quality and images you see as you drive away from it, even at night.

Thankfully, a driver was waiting to take us to our hotel.  It was his first time at the new terminal as well and we all got a good tour of the parking lot as he couldn’t remember the way to his rickety tickety car. 
I was feeling alright, but David had difficulty sleeping on the plane and he already had quite a sleep deficit from trying to fit everything in before we left Montreal. We made pre-arrangements with the hotel to be picked up (surely more expensive than what we would have paid if we found a taxi at the airport).  Neither of us felt like haggling with a taxi driver over a price and location to take us to and we were glad to be spared from it at that time.

One of our first images upon leaving the airport grounds in the taxi was a man at a stop light walking down the line of stopped cars with an infant in his arms and a dirty empty baby bottle tapping our window.  As we drove through the intersection, a woman, possibly his wife, stood blankly in the night holding a younger baby.
As we whizzed down the highways and roads to our hotel, we were even more thankful that we weren’t driving. The drivers here are courteous toa fault. Thy honk if you’re passing into their lane, they honk if they are passing into your lane, they honk if you’re even thinking about passing into their lane… and sometimes, they honk just to let you know that they’re there. That was at night; I can’t wait to see rush hour.

We drove by some beautiful grandiose buildings and hotels along the route to Hotel Broadway. About 25 minutes into our 30 minute commute, the view starts to get dirtier and intimidating.  We were driving through a slum with tin shacks and dark alleyways. About 5 minutes away, we arrived at our hotel in the Old World district, nestled between New and Old Delhi. 

This morning, we’ll get acclimatised and we’ll get our cellphone situation sorted out. It seems like you need to provide a mobile number for everything around here – it’s almost another form of identification.  There’s free Wi-Fi at the hotel…. but only if you provide your cell number.  Want to book a train online? You need to input a cell number. 

We need to book a plane or a train to get to Rajkot for tomorrow. We tried to do it in Montreal, but there was a problem with the online booking system and neither of us could use our credit cards.  Annie is waiting for us there to introduce us to her friend and his family before she leaves us to go to school in Bangalore. A wedding celebration has been happening there for a couple days now and will continue until Thursday.  We’re really thankful to be able to participate in this.

I’ll leave you with a little video of this morning’s wake-up call at 5:45 am.  I was about to wrap up this blog entry when we heard this.  I think I’ll like this feature of India… it will help to get David moving in the morning.

The loudspeaker seems to move on to other areas and as of 6:06 we can still hear it as the city comes to life.