A warm (and I mean that literally - it's hovering in the high 90's here) hello to our very loyal readers, followers, feed readers, lurkers et al. from India. I haven't written much on these pages for a long, long time and that's because I had other oh-so-slightly important things to attend. Like finalizing on a medical school. And graduation.
But now that I am on a glorious three-week long vacation in India, I have bucketloads of free time. What better way to spend it than churning out blog posts (some of which will, inevitably, be of dubious quality)?
The Flight: The prospect of flying to India from the states is frightening. Total flying time is routinely around 16-20 hours. Unless you are flying to and from a major airport (e.g. Los Angeles to Mumbai), add a few more hours to that flying time for connecting flights, layovers and road transportation. In my case, I flew Emirates airlines from LAX to Dubai and from Dubai to Ahmedabad, a comfortably sized city in the western state of Gujarat. From there, my destination is about 90 km. Emirates is one of the handful of airlines that treats its economy-class passengers as more than worthless cargo. In-flight service is generous and courteous.
I wasted a good two hours trying to like the Adam Sandler-driven trash vehicle "Just go with it", also starring Jennifer Aniston and, inexplicably, Nicole Kidman, finally settling down to watch reruns of my favorite TV show "Mad Men." Dubai's airport is large enough to house an entire eastern European nation or one of those trendy enclaves like Monaco. There I spend a whole $6 on a tiny cup of Haagen-Dazs ice-cream.
After clearing immigration and customs at Ahmedabad airport, I arrived at my destination (a small town called Vallabh Vidyanagar) at 6 in the morning, local time on Wednesday. I had left LA at 1 pm local time on Monday. In all, I spent about 30 hours in flights, layovers and other miscellany.
As I am writing this, the ceiling fan is groaning at top speed, desperately trying to generate enough cool air to ward the heat away. My friends and grandparents told me it was a lot hotter last week. Should I be glad, then?
That's it for this first installment. In the next part, I will talk a bit more about the place I am at (history, customs, what's life like here and so on), but in the meantime, say hello to my little friend that allows me to communicate with the outside world:
But now that I am on a glorious three-week long vacation in India, I have bucketloads of free time. What better way to spend it than churning out blog posts (some of which will, inevitably, be of dubious quality)?
The Flight: The prospect of flying to India from the states is frightening. Total flying time is routinely around 16-20 hours. Unless you are flying to and from a major airport (e.g. Los Angeles to Mumbai), add a few more hours to that flying time for connecting flights, layovers and road transportation. In my case, I flew Emirates airlines from LAX to Dubai and from Dubai to Ahmedabad, a comfortably sized city in the western state of Gujarat. From there, my destination is about 90 km. Emirates is one of the handful of airlines that treats its economy-class passengers as more than worthless cargo. In-flight service is generous and courteous.
I wasted a good two hours trying to like the Adam Sandler-driven trash vehicle "Just go with it", also starring Jennifer Aniston and, inexplicably, Nicole Kidman, finally settling down to watch reruns of my favorite TV show "Mad Men." Dubai's airport is large enough to house an entire eastern European nation or one of those trendy enclaves like Monaco. There I spend a whole $6 on a tiny cup of Haagen-Dazs ice-cream.
After clearing immigration and customs at Ahmedabad airport, I arrived at my destination (a small town called Vallabh Vidyanagar) at 6 in the morning, local time on Wednesday. I had left LA at 1 pm local time on Monday. In all, I spent about 30 hours in flights, layovers and other miscellany.
As I am writing this, the ceiling fan is groaning at top speed, desperately trying to generate enough cool air to ward the heat away. My friends and grandparents told me it was a lot hotter last week. Should I be glad, then?
That's it for this first installment. In the next part, I will talk a bit more about the place I am at (history, customs, what's life like here and so on), but in the meantime, say hello to my little friend that allows me to communicate with the outside world:
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Keep Posting (Your buddy from Boston)
ReplyDeleteAs long as your keep reading, my man!
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