June 22nd, 2022
Was up at around 7:00 a.m. Showered and dressed, then went down for breakfast. After I checked over the room one last time, I brought bags down to lobby and checked out of the room. I verified the taxi time and paid the fee to the hotel (who would pay the driver when they arrived).
Sat in the lobby talking with some of the others while we all waited for taxi's
Jerry left first at around 8:15, then Dick, Dave and Scott left about 9:30 a.m. Andy had left early before I came down, and I did not hear when the two Australians were leaving (Robert and Simon).
Mark and Milos are both going to stay another night in Leh, so said my goodbyes to them (I might see Mark again on Friday as he is staying at same hotel in Delhi that I booked for myself and will be letting Andy stay with me tonight and Thursday night.) At around 10:00 I went out and got into my taxi.
Taxi ride was the usual traffic and arrived at the airport in about 15 minutes. Walked from the parking into the secure area, then at the door to the building they checked ID's and tickets before letting us inside. Once inside had to have all the bags scanned and then any bags that will be checked were tagged.
I next found the check in counter and waited in line a bit. At the counter they checked me in since I had not been able to do so online, printed ticket, and weighed and checked in my 2 bags (only allowed 1 carry on, so had to check the backpack as well). During that process he let me know I was overweight on the bags (something I expected). But to help me out, he tied my backpack straps to the duffel handgrip, making it 1 bag instead of 2 I guess, but it saved me money that way by only paying the overweight charge on 1 bag instead of that charge and a 2nd bag.
Cost me 1,100 rupee (approximately $15) for the checked bag and then they handed me the boarding pass and got my change. Also gave me a tag to attach to my carry on bag.
I then entered the line for the security checkpoint and was stopped almost immediately by a girl with a form I needed to fill out first (as a foreigner). I stopped in an open section of the queueing area out of the way and did that, then gave it back to her.
Reached the security checkpoint quickly, very short line. Bag was x-rayed and I walked through the metal detector and also a check with a wand.
My bag had too many electronics in it, so it confused the x-ray scanner. They pulled me aside and asked me to open the bag and then had me remove about half the stuff into a plastic tub and looked over the rest of the stuff visually. They then scanned the bag and tub and returned them to me and everything was good, so just had to repack the bag at that point.
Once repacked I walked a short distance to the waiting area for the 3 gates at this airport and found a place to sit (was very busy here). The plane boards at 11:50 a.m., so will just have to listen as there are no signs or indications as to which of the 3 gates will be used or what flights were boarding at any given time. But all gates are within a small area about 100 feet across, so guessing they may only board 1 gate at a time? Hopefully will not be too confusing.
 |
| Leh Airport gate area. |
I wrote in the journal while waiting to burn time and then will just sit the rest of the time and people watch.
So while I was waiting I overheard a call for a flight on the same airline I was flying (Spice Jet) but could not hear the details as the sound quality was horrible and the noise level in the room was quite high, which combined with my hearing issues in high level white noise, made it nearly impossible for me to decipher what was being said in heavily accented English.
Since my boarding time was still 30 minutes away, I assumed it was another flight, but after sitting for 10 more minutes I had a nagging feeling, so I got up and went over to the line and asked a group of guys in line what flight that line was for.
Turns out it was my flight which had started boarding early! So I got into line. Line moved fairly quickly to the gate entry where they scanned the boarding pass and I went through the gate.
On the other side we were being loaded onto shuttle busses just outside the door which would drive us out to the plane. We waited in line here again, as they only had 1 bus at a time. I had to wait for 2 busses to fill before I got on one, the first was pulling out as I entered the room and the 2nd filled up when I was like 1 person away, so had to wait for the 3rd bus.
The shuttle drove us out to the plane which was on a side standing where we then walked up the stairs to get into the plane (and we actually boarded from the rear of the plane). I did manage to get overhead space for my bag, but had to go 3 rows in front of my seat to find it, so was a bit of a hassle to then back up to my seat.
Flight took off early as well and was just a normal flight, nothing special. Got some good views of the surrounding mountain peaks before the cloud layer got in the way and blocked much of the view except for a few short periods (which I took advantage of with both photos and videos since I had the window seat. Girl in the aisle seat had me do some video with her phone as well).
Looking down at the peaks (0:51)
 |
| Himalayas from 35,000 feet. |
Landed in Delhi soon after, though I did fall asleep I think on the flight for a bit, so made time go quicker. Got off the plane via stairs again and loaded onto another shuttle to drive over to the terminal. Then waited about 25 minutes for my checked bag to show up.
I left the terminal, but I could not see any information on getting over to the metro train, which would have taken me to the hotel station for about $1, so I just grabbed a private car service/taxi to take me which cost me 1000 rupee (about $13).
Took 10 minutes by car and I was there. Staying at the Roseate House hotel this time. Went through the security check to get into the hotel (and again had a security check to get into parking lot as well) and went to check in. While I was doing that I heard Andy's voice further down the desk and got his attention (he was asking about if I had checked in yet). That made it easy to add him to the room (though it did raise the price some). They were even able to change the room as I had originally booked one with a single bed, but now we had two beds.
 |
| Hotel courtyard. |
We went up to the room, organized our stuff, cleaned/refreshed up a bit and then went to find lunch at one of the hotel restaurants. After a great meal, went back to the room and tried to find something on TV, but we were both tired and Andy fell asleep soon after. I sat up and watched Deadpool and a few random shows as I changed channels.
We then both went back down for dinner later, then back to the room. I updated the journal and then prepared what I would need for our excursion tomorrow and then went to bed.
Good night!
No comments:
Post a Comment