From the Indias to India

Our trip began on a Thursday. 3 hours in a bus to Chicago + 14 hours of flight Chicago Delhi + ? (I will explain the question mark later)

The bus was fine, as always.

Once we got to Chicago, we went to Air India’s check-in counter, in front of which there was a long line of Indians. We were the only Caucasians in the line. We spent some time deciding which of the saris was the prettiest.

Once we got to the counter, we decided to ask the very nice flight attendant if he was familiar we Delhi. We explained that we had the intention of taking a train to Jaiselmer right after we landed in Delhi.

*Note that, in theory, we land on Delhi at 15:30 and the train leaves at 17:30 from Delhi Junction Station, which is, again in theory, 44 minutes away by car in optimal traffic conditions.

The flight assistant explained that we could make it if we took the subway. He checked-in the big backpack as “Priority”, so it would come out first in Delhi and wished us good luck. We left happy, but we still aren’t sure whether we’ll make it in time or not.

Before boarding, we filled our survival water bottle in one of the fountains. It is strongly recommended not to drink tap water in India, anything with ice or even rinsing your mouth after brushing your teeth, and we didn’t know if we would have the time to buy bottled water before boarding the train.

The trip from Delhi to Jaiselmer lasts 18 hours. Yes. If we are lucky, we will be having 3 hours of bus, plus 14 hours of plane, plus one of subway, plus 18 hours of train for a nice total of 36 hours traveling. We are already heroes for our flight buddy (Alejandro).

Once we boarded the plane, we happily noticed the bottle of water and blanket that were waiting for us on each of our seats. Both elements quickly became part of the contents of our backpacks. As good Spaniards would have done.

We quickly became friends with Alejandro, a man from Venezuela that sat next to us and was going to India for business. He asked if we were actually going to keep the blankets, because then we would keep his too. We talked about many things during the flight and we have to thank him for the conversations, which made the flight more entertaining.

The only thing remarkable about the food we got was the dessert. It was somewhere between custard and rice pudding, but made with pasta instead of rice. I am sorry, but my ignorance doesn´t allow me to know what the name of that desert was.

We had a good flight with our seats on the Emergency exit. The only thing that I have left to mention is the group of Indian women grouped in front of the bathroom chatting for hours, in Hindi, obviously. I didn´t/couldn´t take a better picture since I didn´t want to bother them.

So far, the luck has been with us. We will see if we end up catching the train or not on the next post.