Day 59 (4 August): Bye, bye India
Today I took in more of Dehli. I saw the Naxmi Naryan Temple (which is a newer temple also built with funds from the Birla family that fixed up the temples in Rajastan.) I also saw New Dehli's famous, Lotus flower shaped Bahai temple. On the way to that I passed by a number of the city's government buildings including the Reserve Bank of India (their central bank), parliment, and the Inida gate monument. Finally, I saw the Qutab Mintar, a 70 meter tall stone towere, which is from the old city, actually the 4th attempt at building a lasting city; also next to that is India's oldest Mosque since it was from the Moghul era. The present city is the 8th attempt and it seems to have finally stuck. On the way back, I saw the embassay neighborhood of the city.
From there I went back to my hotel, ate, took a shower, and watched some Indian news programs on TV because I thought I had time for my flight out which when I check two days earlier was still scheduled for 11:40 pm. Eventually, I got bored and headed to the airport, where I thought I'd have time to check some e-mail. I arrived at 7:10 to find out that the previous day my flight had been moved up to 7:55, meaning I barely made it given customs for international flights, etc.
When I arrived in Colombo, Sri Lanka, I was supposed to only have to wait 3.5 hours for a middle of the night connection, but now it was just under eight hours. Apparently, just under eight hours (7.75 hours) means that Sri Lankan airlines didn't have to give me a hotel room to stay in when if it was eight hours they would have. I spent a pleasant night wandering around the airport in Sri Lanka and try to find places to sleep--unfortunately there were none that were suitable. On the upside though, based on the airport alone in Sri Lanka, I was finally in a clean country again. On the downside, my morning flight was delayed by 2.5 hours meaning I spent nearly 10 hours in the Colombo airport.
Observations:
1) Parts of Dehli look like Washington DC and almost seem to be designed after it. The parliment building is at the end of Raja path which is similar to the mall, just replace the Washington Monument with the India gate. Another example is that the Reserve Bank of India building appears from the outside at least to have the same floor plan as the main Federal Reserve building; RBI's facade, however, isn't nearly as nice.
2) The Embassay enclave and government areas which are closer to the airport look entirely different than the rest of the city. I wonder if the Indian government thinks that by keeping the roads functioning and this part of the city clean if they really think they can make foreign leaders who visit think that India is clean, has good roads, and no poverty problems because if you were to look at these areas alone that is what you would conclude.
3) Sri Lankan Airlines. Sri Lankan was actually a nice airline (although I think it really is Emeriates operating under a different name) given the high number of code share routes. Nonetheless, I think they scammed a bunch of people into camping out in the airport as several flights arrived just under the eight hour window for connections and every morning connection flight was delayed by at least two hours.
From there I went back to my hotel, ate, took a shower, and watched some Indian news programs on TV because I thought I had time for my flight out which when I check two days earlier was still scheduled for 11:40 pm. Eventually, I got bored and headed to the airport, where I thought I'd have time to check some e-mail. I arrived at 7:10 to find out that the previous day my flight had been moved up to 7:55, meaning I barely made it given customs for international flights, etc.
When I arrived in Colombo, Sri Lanka, I was supposed to only have to wait 3.5 hours for a middle of the night connection, but now it was just under eight hours. Apparently, just under eight hours (7.75 hours) means that Sri Lankan airlines didn't have to give me a hotel room to stay in when if it was eight hours they would have. I spent a pleasant night wandering around the airport in Sri Lanka and try to find places to sleep--unfortunately there were none that were suitable. On the upside though, based on the airport alone in Sri Lanka, I was finally in a clean country again. On the downside, my morning flight was delayed by 2.5 hours meaning I spent nearly 10 hours in the Colombo airport.
Observations:
1) Parts of Dehli look like Washington DC and almost seem to be designed after it. The parliment building is at the end of Raja path which is similar to the mall, just replace the Washington Monument with the India gate. Another example is that the Reserve Bank of India building appears from the outside at least to have the same floor plan as the main Federal Reserve building; RBI's facade, however, isn't nearly as nice.
2) The Embassay enclave and government areas which are closer to the airport look entirely different than the rest of the city. I wonder if the Indian government thinks that by keeping the roads functioning and this part of the city clean if they really think they can make foreign leaders who visit think that India is clean, has good roads, and no poverty problems because if you were to look at these areas alone that is what you would conclude.
3) Sri Lankan Airlines. Sri Lankan was actually a nice airline (although I think it really is Emeriates operating under a different name) given the high number of code share routes. Nonetheless, I think they scammed a bunch of people into camping out in the airport as several flights arrived just under the eight hour window for connections and every morning connection flight was delayed by at least two hours.
posted by Traveling Brian at 5:06 AM
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