And so our adventure has begun, after two years of waiting we finally set off on our journey to India. Our 2½ hour drive to Heathrow Terminal 3 was uneventful if you don’t take into consideration the M4 was shut between junctions 8 & 6, this resulted in a detour via the M3 but we got there in the end and once in the terminal building we were swiftly through security and airside. Some areas were quite congested but it is great to see it nice and busy again and looking more like how it used to be. Our journey to Delhi took us via Dubai, both flights were on Emirates, the first leg on an A380-800 and the second on Boeing 777-300 with a 2 hours & 55 minute stopover.
After boarding our first flight, we were able to watch some live TV and in particular coverage of England’s second half World Cup match with Senegal. I wasn’t expecting that! 😁
The 7 hour flight passed fairly quickly and before we knew it, we were in Dubai waiting for the next leg which would take us to New Delhi. This was a much shorter flight coupled but with another time change of 2½ hours left us feeling quite groggy.
We were off the plane by 2:30 but Indian immigration had different ideas about letting us move swiftly out of the airport, in fact, it took 2½ hours to get through that ordeal. Lots of people and not many people doing the processing. When we eventually got through and collected our luggage, we needed to change some currency which took another 15 minutes. One last thing before leaving the airport was to pick up a data SIM for my dongle from the Airtel kiosk which we did with the assistance of our Uniworld meet and greet representative. We were now feeling totally exhausted and failed to take in much of the 50-minute journey to the hotel. Upon arrival at our hotel, The Oberoi, New Delhi, we were greeted by a small reception crew who placed a Marigold flower garland around our necks before being shown straight to our room. Just before we headed up we were also introduced to the Uniworld tour manager and his assistant who gave us a brief rundown of what would be happening over the next two days. We are going to be hitting the ground running that’s for sure.
Our room is stunning, we were initially just too shell shocked to take in its splendor and size but after about an hour we were able to start to fully appreciate it. We decided to stay put this evening and just unwind so we can be at full strength for tomorrow. I’ll just sign off with one or two photos that I did manage to take which don’t really do the room the justice it deserves.
Nice room! I would have been surprised as well.
A lot of travel and I can imagine very tiring, especially with the time changes. Hotel room looks very nice!