AT DAWN'S EARLY LIGHT

Of course, wouldn’t you know, the first serious winter storm of the season so slowed air traffic at Ohare International Airport that our scheduled 2:35 p.m. American Eagle flight didn’t actually take off for Chicago until after 4:30 p.m. Fortunately we had allowed plenty of time to make the transfer there to our flight to Delhi (which did, in fact, board at the scheduled 7:35 p.m. departure time – only to sit at the gate for around three hours while a frozen water valve problem was resolved!)

The flight itself went well. The crew fed us dinner (not bad!), provided each of us with a snack bag and served breakfast shortly before landing. We had an entire row of four seats to ourselves which allowed us to stretch out and curl up for naps. Seatback video screens and abundant reading material supplied any needed entertainment,

Lee was particularly struck by the abundance of personal electronic equipment in view throughout the flight. Even while waiting to depart Ohare, lots of cell phones remained in use; and during the flight, laptop computers and portable DVD players were as commonplace as iPods and other portable music players have always been. That – and the individual control provided by those seatback audio visual screens – really help make long term air travel survival possible these days!

We arrived at Indira Gandhi International in Delhi around 12:15 a.m. on Wednesday, December 3rd, having missed Tuesday altogether as a result. Heidi was disappointed to realize that our flight pattern took us over Greenland and Russia instead of more to the west of the North Pole. That pattern means that, although we will return through London, she still can’t claim to have flown “around the world.”

Our expected pre-arranged hotel pick-up, not surprisingly, was not waiting for us when we emerged from Customs and Immigration around 2:00 a.m. or so. We had back-up instructions from Jeremy Kahn, however, and finally managed to prepay for a taxi that whisked us off the thirty minutes or so to the Park Hotel near Connaught Circle in New Dehli, our home for the next three nights.

First impressions are a bit misty since the seasonal fog had settled in by the time we were making our way into the city – and, of course, the traffic at that time of night was minimal. Near the airport and also close to our hotel we passed by various sites connected with the ongoing construction of the underground Delhi Metro subway system extension to the airport. Horns were beeping and honking constantly; traffic signals appeared only advisory – we ran a couple of red lights with impunity. As we got closer to town, huge tree limbs overhung the roadway, providing much more greenery than expected. And there weren’t visible crowds of people around – everything appeared quite calm and serene.

Our hotel is quite contemporary and sleek, reminding us of the W chain in the United States; the rooms are comfortable, nicely designed and quiet – despite the fact that it houses one of the city’s most popular nightspots!