So in the last 26 hours: Home > Black cab > Edinburgh airport > BA > London Heathrow > Jet Airways > Delhi airport > Company taxi > The Park Hotel > Shower > Company Taxi > Work > 5 hours > Company Taxi > Hotel now.
Rather place lagged. Where am I?
The long haul flight was very nice indeed. It was my first experience of proper Business Class (not just the cram-them-in-a-lounge and then give-them-a-seat-at-the-front that happens on domestic flights). This was the flat beds, the 4 course dinner served on china plates with linen napkins, the Dom Perignon to help us through the stress of take off, the pyjamas, Bulgari travel pack and mattress/pillow/covers all provided, the noise-cancelling headphones, the video-on-demand not just "watch what we tell you when we tell you" (alas I only managed about half of Superman Returns - will have to catch up with What Happened Next on the way back. Lois was looking wistful about something - then I fell asleep).
Look at the space available: [This is Hanna showing the modified "cradle" setting of the chairs. Although as she's pretty tiny this doesn't really help set the scale.]
So I took one showing my toes. Slightly hard to see the perspective, so you may just have to take my word for it that there are about another 18 inches between my toes and the back of the seat in front. When I was in "full bed" setting I still didn't use up all the space. Bliss. Although I didn't actually sleep particularly well. Despite the earplugs and everything.
We landed a little late. The ground below us for the last half hour or so was baked fields and small towns. There were some greener bits near the river, but the strangest part was an area with lots of (I assume) flower fields, where there was a sudden, random-shaped scribble of vivid colour. The rows were parallel but not of equal length, so it looked as if fields had been coloured in badly. And lots of different colours, side by side. I wish I'd had a photo but it was "all electrical items off and Return To Your Seats" by that point. Flying in over Delhi we had a great aerial view of the Lotus Temple with the pools of water around it. Must go there tomorrow!
Hanna and I found our luggage without the mega-delays of the last two trips, even though BA (who had checked my bag all the way through) hadn't stuck Priority stickers on, then we left the safety of the arrival hall to face the masses. We found our driver very easily - nearly the correct spelling too (surname was fine, but I was "Liva").
Not our transport:
Looking ever-so-slightly-worse for wear after 15 hours travelling:
Driving through Delhi from the airport I realised something quite revolutionary: to appreciate Delhi you really need to go to somewhere like Mumbai first. My impression of Delhi last time was dusty/shabby round the edges / nice underneath but what a shame it's not better looked after. Having been to Mumbai, Delhi now seems green and beautiful. Yes it's a bit shabby but it's much smarter than Mumbai, and the wide streets have generally got reasonable road surfaces and space for the Random drivers to do their thing without getting in too many other people's way. Delhi Good.I am slightly sad to be staying at The Park rather than in Noida, as it is going to mean a journey to work of at least an hour each way, every working day. The advantages are that the hotel was designed by Terence Conran and is therefore quite "nice", it's right in the centre for sight-seeing/shopping trips and my view is this:
Jantar Mantar!
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