Nepal, but really mostly Delhi

This last bit, much like the first bit, doesn't really deal too much with me being in Nepal, but never mind. I still want to write about it, mostly on the off-chance any of you were considering flying through Delhi any time soon -- you'll want to go ahead and reroute now. Try Dubai, they're very nice there and sometimes there are free buffets.

Here's the problem: You leave Kathmandu still glowing from your magical two weeks of mountains and hidden courtyards, and, though they grope you no fewer than four times while passing through security (one groping is actually conducted on the stairs leading up to the aircraft as your fellow passengers wait in an amorphous bottleneck crush on the steaming tarmac for their turn to undergo the same indignity -- does this strike anyone as a good idea?), you're still relatively happy about the place and glad that you slogged across three countries to get there. But then you land in India. And India, being it's usual charming self, makes you want to never leave your home ever again in your life.

You get off the plane and are funneled into a big open hall, which contains no signage whatsoever and gives you no hints as to which way you're supposed to proceed, and so you become confused. Then you notice that there's one guy standing in the middle of the hall, mumbling things that you can't understand unless you get closer, so everyone clogs around him only to find out that his instructions are simply "International passengers wait here" (aren't we all international passengers, having come from another country? Oh but let's not be difficult now). So everyone waits in a clump, bumping into each other, until the people who aren't connecting to other flights realize that they can actually go on through immigration, and the transit passengers, at least most of them, realize that by "wait here" he meant "proceed through this messy line and give all pertinent information to a representative who won't tell you what it's for". You have to be proactive, you see.

So we get through that, and then once they have compiled all the vital information of every single transit passenger onto hand-written sheets of paper, they take these sheets, stand in the middle of the room, and read them aloud as if we're being picked for the middle school volleyball team. You're supposed to listen for your name and the move from wherever you're standing to some other part of the room to show movement, which they note dutifully, and then they mush you all back into a group and march you up the stairs and into a waiting area. Your guardians disappear and you realize: you've been trapped. Trapped in transit. From the waiting area you can see the rest of the airport, the shops, the restaurants, the happy people drinking cappuccinos and waiting for their flights in the comfort of an easy chair at the Coffee Bean (or equivalent). But transit passengers are not allowed over there. They have to wait in the Transit Waiting Area, also known as Airport Purgatory, for the entire duration of their layover. Which, if you're the French people whose flight home got canceled because of that unpronounceable Icelandic volcano, means up to and maybe exceeding four days. I watched these French people for awhile as I ate my cold french fries in the one Transit-approved restaurant -- at one point one of them had a breakdown and sobbed for a good twenty minutes on the stairs just outside A little later, once she had been brought back into the fold, someone took out a guitar and they held a sing-along of popular French diddies, everyone joining in. When one of their party got a flight and had to go, they all hugged and took pictures, exchanging email addresses and promising to get together soon. It was really quite touching. But then the restaurant called the police on them and had them unceremoniously removed, apparently for overstaying the secret unwritten hour limit imposed to keep people from getting too attached to that dimly-lit hellhole. Talk about adding insult to volcanic ash cloud.

Anyway, back downstairs in Transit purgatory, I sat in a hard blue chair from 4:30 to 11 pm, reading, cursing under my breath, and waiting to be granted my golden ticket to freedom, also known as a standard boarding pass. At 11 my airline representative appeared from his secret lair to announce that my boarding pass would be delivered "soon soon" but that in the meantime I was invited to a free dinner, courtesy of Jet Airlines. What? But ok. So I scarfed down as much dal curry as I could, which produced some really uncomfortable cramps, all the while suspicious of the bad news that such a bizarre gift must surely portend. I still don't get it. There was no bad news, except of course that I was there in the first place. I went back downstairs, witnessed an impromptu birthday party for a Chilean girl who had the singular misfortune of turning 26 in that dump -- no Mumbai slumber zone, I can assure you -- and waited. About 12:30, another representative materialized out of thin air to round up all of us Jet Airways passengers (I mean, we hope he got all of them, but one can never be sure), issue us boarding passes (by putting 25 boarding passes on a table and asking us to identify ours, all at once), and send us on a mad dash through the airport to make the last call for our flight -- which, miraculously, departed on time at 1:05 am. Go figure.

The most disturbing part of this whole charade is that this is normal procedure. I asked. I was assured. "Yes madam, standard standard. Yes Madam, every flight, every day, oh yes, very normal. Always this way it works." Um, no it doesn't, but tell yourself whatever you want. I hate you and I'm never coming back anyway.

And that's the end of the story! The takeaway, thirty four pages later: Go to Nepal, but by god do not fly through Delhi. Fly through Phnom Penh instead and then you can come visit me!

Congratulations to those of you who made it this far. More adventures to come.