Our transfer to the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel airport in
Ahmedabad went fairly smoothly. Our
wake-up call was about 10 minutes late, but they were at our room about 10
minutes early to pick up the bags. It
almost felt like “don’t let the door hit you on the way out”.
At security, Greg had a thorough search and had some
batteries confiscated. I was upset about
my experience in the women’s security check, where I was moved over to the
men’s security scanner and then moved back to the women’s line up. My laptop and all other important carry-on
items went through the men’s scanner and were sitting unattended at the scanner
exit for at least 10 minutes, or at least I hoped they were sitting there. It made me very nervous to have my bags
out-of-sight. Once I got through the
women’s security scanner, only then was I asked to remove my boots. So I figured, I’d just get right back in
front of the scanner line when I removed my boots. But other passengers were literally nudging
me out of the way, so I gave the pat-down security women a look of desperation
and she waved me through. All this time,
my laptop is just sitting unattended at the men’s scanner exit. Being in a foreign airport, I did not make a
fuss, but it was very stressful indeed.
I was reunited with my laptop and all was good.
On the Jet-lite flight, we had to pay for the coffee which
was consisted of a ½ cup of hot water with a convenience kit containing 1
instant coffee packet, creamer, sugar, spoon, and napkin. Yuk! I
couldn’t even drink it. Well, it seems
when the cup is ½ empty, the cup is ½ empty… just before we took off, the
passenger in front of me abruptly reclined his seat and it smashed right into
my knee (and aren’t seats supposed to be in the upright position during
take-off?). So, I hoped this would be
the one and only challenging flight. All
else went very smoothly and before you could wink, we were in Delhi.
Sandeep Sing Minhas, the Assistant Manager and Altaf, the
Driver from Worldwide Adventures India were there to pick us up at this very
impressive Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi. Although it was rush hour when we arrived,
they sailed through traffic and we were at our hotel, The Uppal in no
time. After settling into our room, Greg
took off for his meeting at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (India’s
premiere engineering school) and I caught up on blogging, e-mails and other
writing.
We hired a hotel car and driver to get us to Vani and Ian’s
Sangeet (an evening of music, dancing and fun to celebrate the wedding). Sudish, our Driver waited patiently while we
enjoyed ourselves at this entertaining and fun party. Even though we were 20 minutes late, we were
the first ones to arrive. Vani’s Mother
greeted us warmly and told us people were always late and called it “Indian Time”. Note to self; there really is a thing called
Indian Time, so we Aboriginal Canadians are actually following “Fake Indian
Time” back home, haha.
The party was so much fun and people were very
friendly. The Hotel Vista was decorated
beautifully in a purple, gold, and orange colour theme. There was inside and outside seating, but the
dancing performances were held inside.
These dances, performed by family and friends, were choreographed
specifically for the wedding and were very polished. I thought they were traditional dances. After each dance, the dancers would greet the
bride and groom. The canapés were
endless and the buffet dinner was a palate pleaser. Unfortunately, Greg’s camera ran out of
batteries just when Ian got up to dance with Vani. All in all, it was an excellent evening
indeed and we are looking forward to the wedding ceremony tomorrow.
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| Vani and Ian - aren't they such a gorgeous couple? |
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