Delhi to Jaipur

It is tough getting out of bed at 4am but I am stoked by the excitement of what lies ahead in India. Our flight leaves at about 630 and the airport is 40 minutes away.

On the way there is some uncertainty about which airport we need to go to, either the International or Domestic airport. This a domestic flight but the driver seems to think we need the International one so we drive there. There are armed guards manning a rickety road block at the airport, they tell us that we need the Domestic terminal and we divert as such. By the time we are dropped off we only have an hour till our flight leaves but we are prevented from entering the terminal building by armed security guards. Apparently in India you cannot enter the airport building without an itinerary or a ticket printed out with your name on it (if you have an e-ticket print the itinerary).

We are directed to the airline counter outside the terminal building to have this printed. The situation grows dire as we stand in line, but it gets much worse when we reach the counter and are told that we are at the WRONG terminal. We desperately scan the traffic for taxis but there are none since pickups are not allowed at this zone. An animated exchange between an Indian man and driver of a van 20 feet from us draws our attention, impulsively we try our luck. "Are you going to the international terminal?!", we ask. "Yes", he nods vigorously as he climbs into the van. They accepts us as passengers and urges us to hurry onboard. On the way we learn that this man who is a jewelry dealer has made the same error as us and he is on the same flight, it seems the locals are none the wiser.

We arrive again at the International terminal and once again we are prevented from entering the building by guards since we still don't have an itinerary. Jewelry guy slips inside with his, at least he knew that much. How can we get one printed?? The guard points to the end of the terminal,... from where we stand it looks like 5 miles away. We arrive there with just 30 minutes until departure and the attendant in the booth now has computer issues, he cannot print out an itinerary for us. He exits his booth with our passports leaving Tom and I staring at each other. "Have a nice trip!", I say after the person walking away with our IDs and Tom shrugs. To our relief he returns with boarding passes awhile later. Ok, we have boarding passes but our bags are not checked in and the flight leaves in 20 minutes. We haul our bags back to the guard at the terminal entrance which is 5 miles away... or so it seems. For some reason, we are denied entry at all the terminal entrances along the way, everyone really wants us to enter at the entrance that is furthest away. This must be some sort of conspiracy to make us miss the flight and have us collapse from the effort.

Inside the terminal we now are required to stand in line at the check-in counter. It seems pointless by this time but I still voice a plea to get to the front of the line, the folks seem to not understand except for an American lady who offers us to go ahead of her. I turn back to express my gratitude only to have some Indians fiendishly use this opportunity slip in ahead of me with their caravan of belongings. Great! However I don't get upset, I'm already resigned to come what may. To our surprise the saried lady at the check in counter accepts our baggage, the flight is delayed!!!

Once onboard the passenger next to me tells me, "I fly this flight regularly, this is the first time we are not leaving on time". I smile inside, somehow there was a knowing we were not going miss this flight.