Thank you for visiting our blog to stay up-to-date on our vacation in India. We are happy to share the exciting news that we arrived safely in Chennai a few hours ago.
That seems so easy to say, but it is the 21st of June here - Saturday morning. And we left home 8:30 a.m. on June 19. It will be an understatement to say a lot has happened since then.
This was a new experience for us in packing as we travelled with four carry-on size suitcases. We checked them all in and only carried personal bags on board. It made it so easy.
The flight to Toronto was comfortable. In Toronto, Cintra got wheelchair service, so it made the very long walk to the international gate in T1 easy. We did not have seats assigned together for the rest of the journey, so we had to ask passengers to change seats with us. People were very accommodating.
We arrived in Brussels about 8 a.m. June 20. The flight was packed and we had good service including some spicy meals. We got a good connection from Brussels to Mumbai.
Jet Airways India has nice large planes with good movies and modern systems. However, the flight attendants are not big on service. They give easy answers to get you out of the way, but not go out of their way to help.
On a trivial note, I watched the flight path and it looked like it went over Ukraine, Russia, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Some of the terrain on the map looked very rugged and inhospitable. I privately wondered what it would be like if were forced to land or crashed in that desert or mountains.
On June 21, we arrived in Mumbai about 10:45 and went through all the immigration, customs and security in the Mumbai airport. We were very clear about our request for a wheel chair, so one was ready when we left the aircraft.
The airline worker who escorted us withe the wheelchair was very helpful and friendly. He got us through a lot of steps and saved us a lot of stress.
After clearing the international airport, we had to take a shuttle bus through the tarmac to the domestic terminal for our flight to Chennai.
The level of English dropped a little with the staff, but they did well. We have to get used to the fact that people may assume we know Hindi. But they do very well with English.
It was an interesting adventure traveling from Mumbai to Chennai. It was a full but comfortable flight and were treated to a meal at 3 a.m. Upon arrival in Chennai we disembarked and rode on a bus to the terminal. Again we had a very kind helper who saw to it we got our luggage and took us out to the parking lot to meet our hosts.
The ride to Mathias and Sujatha's house was fascinating since it was our first live exposure to the real sights and sounds of urban India. How could anyone survive the traffic whirling around each other like a tornado? The constant car horns was a blast from the past. And the rough looking buildings, cows wandering, auto rickshaws darting in and out and around anything. All the Bollywood movies flashed back to me.
Today is Saturday and we will catch up on some rest and spend some time With Mathias and Sujatha and plan our visit until we leave next week for Sri Lanka.
will have an update on our outing over the next few days in my next blog.
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