Episode 1- Delayed Arrival

  Mumbai, India
Wednesday, January 3, 2007

 
 
 
 
 


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Check out the episode here.

In everything one reads about India, it says that India moves at its own pace. Schedules are just suggestions rather than strict time tables to follow, lines are a normal part of every day life, and waiting is a national past time rather than an inconvenience.

We were startlingly introduced to this fact before even stepping foot in to India when our travel mate Jennifer Thaxton's (read more about her in the connections section!) plane was delayed. She was on a different flight than Justin and I. Not the normal couple of hour delay, but rather a delay of over 10 hours was expected. Already slated to arrive after us in India, this mixup could created serious problems. We had no idea how to get around in India, what the airport would look like, or even where we were staying the first night once we landed in Mumbai. We had no cell phones, no access to email, and no idea how we would link back up. We decided the best course of action was for Justin and I to stay at the airport as long as was necessary in Mumbai to make sure we linked up with the thax-machine before setting off through downtown India.

Our flight was a pleasure. We sweet-talked the flight attendants at the gates and they gave us an entire center aisle between the two of us. We would be able to trade off laying down across 3 of the 4 seats and sleep all the way to Mumbai. We tasted our first Indian food on the 9 hour flight, sampling a spicy and colorful mixture of food with the consistency of baby food. This was precisely the description I gave to my first poop over Indian airspace! (NOTE TO THE READER: The old saying about travel in India is that "it's not IF you get sick in India, but WHEN you get sick." Our bowels and their associated movement will likely enjoy quite a bit of attention on Vlogabond throughout our journey.

Upon landing, we proceeded quickly proceeded through customs and found a few nice chairs below an electrical outlet to set up camp. It was 12:30am, and the arrivals board said her arrival was "provisionally" set to arrive at 8:45am. Four games of chess, three hundred pages of reading, two overly friendly travelers, zero meals and eight hours later, we walked back to Jen's gate to await her arrival. Before our very eyes, the board flipped the arrival time from 8:45 to 9:45. At 9:45, the board changed to 10:45. As the clock struck 11am, we began to worry. There was not a soul in the airport who was willing to speculate on the status of her flight.

Finally, at 11:30am, the board changed to "arrived" and by noon, Jen was walking out the door with her pack. We had arrived at Heathrow airport more than 28 hours ago, and we were finally all in India! We quickly set about the task of arranging a cab fare, and we set off for the southern peninsula of Mumbai called Colaba...... Vlogabond has officially begun!