Day 13

Melbourne/Singapore/New Delhi (Wednesday)

The hotel choice was key, as I woke up feeling like a million bucks Wednesday morning, ready to tackle a 20 hour journey to New Delhi by way of Singapore. All I can say is thank you BrainLAB for booking me in business class. Ok, I had a nutella-filled croissant with powdered sugar and a cappuccino for breakfast. Just amazing, though a little sweet for me actually. I am going to be at least 20 pounds heavier when I get back I think. In the cab on the way to the airport, I realized something bad: I had left my watch in the hotel room! Damn, the thing only cost me $45 on Canal street in NYC, but it was a perfect chopard ripoff. I called the hotel and they found it for me, but had no way of getting it to me as they are not able to ship jewelry (little did they know, this did not really qualify as a precious item). Ok, no problem. Phil lives in Melbourne so I will just ask him to pick it up either before I meet him in Beijing or sometime after that. No worries. At the airport, they made me check my bag, which kind of sucks because I’m going to have to wait for it in New Delhi late this evening when I get in, but I had no choice. Their weight restrictions are so stringent, my bag was twice the legal limit. Shit.

I checked in and made it through security in 10 minutes (seriously), got distracted by all the amazing duty free shops. After purchasing a t-shirt, short sleeve button down and pair of sunglasses, I faintly heard them say over the PA that this was the final boarding call for flight 238 to Singapore. Oops. I made my way over to the gate as quick as I could, but I was not deterred from stopping at a book store and purchasing “My Steve”, by Terri Irwin. A chronicle of her late husband’s life; the Crocodile Hunter. As in LA, I was the last person to board the flight by far. You would think I would learn that I’m cutting it a little too close. You would think that I would have arrived a little earlier since missing this flight would probably end up costing me my job, but no. What is the fun in that? A glass of champagne at 11AM and writing this blog.

India, here I come (for a day and half).

My flight landed around 10PM local time in New Delhi. The flight itself was not bad, business class can vary depending on the aircraft and this one did not have seats that go all the way down, bummer. My philosophy on this flight was to get rip roaring drunk so that I would stay up and feel like passing out when I got to the hotel around 4AM. Naturally, this would just seem like an ordinary Saturday night out for me (of late) and I would feel normal the next day, right? Well, the drunk part I got covered. Champagne, followed by wine, two cocktails appropriately named “sky high” (mixture of vodka, 7-up, and cointreau) and sake. The sake was being delivered as we were within an hour of landing, so I wanted to be sure I made this one last for the additional hour it was going to take to get to the hotel. When I ordered from the stewardess, she brought me a small glass, poured it half full from the bottle and started to walk away. I stopped her immediately and asked if I could keep the bottle. She looked at me kind of startled (he must be an alcoholic) I believe she was thinking in her mind, but kindly left the bottle for me to finish, which I did in about 20 minutes. Yeah, that did the trick.

I stumbled off the plane and followed the crowd to customs. Indian customs was a complete joke. The border patrol agent did not ask my one question, barely glanced at my visa and passport, threw down the stamp and let me pass. Waiting for my bag about 15 minutes at the claim and tried very hard not to give away the fact that I was falling over drunk, lest one of these guys get the idea they could steal the wallet of this amazingly stupid american. Ok, bags are in hand; next step is to find my damn driver who is going to bring me to the hotel. Now, India is very different that the US. The most commonly available and cheapest resource in this country is human life. Therefore, EVERYONE has a driver. When you walk out to Ground Transportation there are roughly 100 drivers standing with names on their cards. I must have walked up and down the row of drivers three times without seeing anyone with my name, wonderful. I tried to ask the security guard how to dial information, but he was not understanding and kept telling me to walk the line again. Since he was carrying an AK-47 and didn’t seem to be in the mood to really help me out, I determined that the best course of action was to take his advice. Sure enough, I saw a driver with the name of the hotel I was going to, Shangr-La, standing there and I approached him. “Mr. Aaron Burwick” the man holding the sign while talking on his cell phone and clearly not paying attention said, “Yes, that’s me”, ok lets go. It kind of pissed me off they didn’t have my name up, but it’s not like I’m going to complain to someone who understands about 10% of what I’m saying.
The Shangri – La is a great hotel, very clean, modern and overall a great place to stay. Service is also top notch. They must have 15 people waiting to greet you at the door and take your bag. Checked into the room, unpacked a little, popped a couple magic sleeping pills and was out like a light. My strategy had worked. My arrival to India pretty much went off without a snag.