Trip Report

^ a blurred view of rural India, from the Shatabdi Express

Nov 14-15, 2007

Enrico is a hero: he woke up at 4 am to drive me to Malpensa (one disadvantage of living in Lecco is that we're a long way from any of Milan's three airports, and Malpensa is the furthest), now he's driving back to Lecco to teach at 11. At least at this hour there's no traffic to speak of on the highways, so we made the trip in an hour.

I checked in for the flights online yesterday morning. I had received email from Air France letting me know I could do this, but the link to their site included in the email did not work, and when I tried to check in starting from their home page, the check-in popup window just sat there and never loaded.

So I went to KLM's site, where I was able to check in, change my seats, and print a boarding pass. When I arrived at the airport I was directed to the desk where I could drop off my luggage. I had to explain to the woman (and she had to confirm with a colleague) that I was entitled to an extra 20 kg of luggage thanks to my Platinum membership; she didn't mention the additional ~4 kg that I was over even that weight. I had packed so as to be able to easily remove a few items at the last minute if needed, but this wasn't necessary. The Mussoorie recipients of Italian largesse will be very happy!

Because I'm actually flying with Air France today, though not in business class, I am entitled to use the lounge. There's construction going on in Malpensa's departure area and all the shops are closed at this hour (augh! I can't buy chocolate!), so lounge access is a good thing. Disappointing is the lack of free WiFi in there - surely a necessary piece of business infrastructure these days? It irks me to pay €10 for an hour's access (or €3 for 15 minutes). Never mind, I can do without. I wish I could also do without the sound of the television...

Transiting through Charles de Gaulle airport wasn't much fun. I suppose they are short on jetways because a terminal collapsed a couple of years ago, and reconstruction clearly still isn't completed. But why is it always flights from Italy that get the shaft? Our plane parked on a remote piece of tarmac, where we had to wait to be bused to a terminal. I then had to run back almost exactly the way I had come to catch my connecting flight, with such poor signage that I could not tell which way to go. Had the connection been any tighter (and the second flight not late) I would have risked missing it.

We boarded what must be one of Air France's older aircraft: no seatback video, and only one side of my stereo headset was functioning. On the communal video (located, as usual, in a position requiring an uncomfortable neck crane for me), we had one American chick flick (something about chefs) and one Hindi movie, Apne - a Bollywood spin on Rocky.

Arrived in Delhi about on time, then had to wait 15-20 minutes for our parking slot to be free. There are now several duty-free shops just after you clear immigration, so I was able to pick up a couple of bottles (2 litres max) for a friend while waiting for my luggage.

You would think that with the abundance of manpower in India they'd be able to move luggage onto the carousel more quickly... I waited around 40 minutes, with everyone's temper increasingly frayed, and was nearly witness to a fight between a Brit and a Frenchman, with commentary from a crowd of Germans.

Finally through all that, the agent from Uday Travel was there to meet me with a car and driver, and we all rode sleepily to the Florence Guest House somewhere in Delhi, where I showered and slept for a couple of hours before they came back to get me for my train to Dehra Dun. The Shatabdi Express would be so much nicer if one could see out the windows!

I knew that Dan Lind, a former Woodstock staffer, would be joining the train at Meerut, making his way up to Mussoorie to study Hindi at the language school. Neither of us was expecting that he'd be seated right behind me! So we had time for some chat until the train finally arrived (late) in Dehra Dun, and Mr. Kulwant himself picked us up in an Ambassador taxi.

I was much amused to see that there is now even a highway sign for Mussoorie: