Woke with the alarm at 8:00 a.m. Andy was not in the room, so assumed he went to connect with Mark this morning.
I packed a few things, then found a message on Facebook that he was having breakfast with Mark.
I responded that I would join them shortly, but in the time I took to shower and dress, they did not respond and were no longer there when I arrived. Figured they went to Marks room, so just had breakfast myself and came back to room. Andy's stuff was still in the room as well.
I checked the pool deck, lobby and called Marks room with no response. It was now 10:00 a.m. and I had to check out of the room shortly, but not sure what to do with Andy's bags?
I went to the front desk to find out the latest I could check out. Normal time was actually noon, but I could extend it till 1:00 p.m. if need. During the discussion I decided in the end to just book the room for another night at the $120 cost even though I would waste about half that.
As I did not have the option to store stuff with Mark since I could not find them, I thought I would rather sit in the hotel room for the day then sit around the airport all day. (My flight did not depart till around midnight that evening).
So once done I came back to the room to check in with the airline (a broken process that did not work very well on a cell phone) and then I eventually just fell asleep again.
I awoke around 3:30 p.m. and noticed that Andy was back at the hotel with Mark, so he came down to get his bags moved into Marks room. (They did not leave till the next morning). Guess they had left to explore central Delhi during the day and for some reason did not try to wake me to see if I would have been interested. Not sure if I would have gone since my original plan had been to go to airport around noon, only changed those plans when I could not find them to move Andy's stuff.
I planned to have dinner around 6:00 p.m. and then leave the hotel around 8:00 p.m. and head to the airport. Flight currently is at 12:30 a.m., so hopefully things will go smoothly with the check in process and bag check and the security lines and such.
I just played on the internet till about 6:00, then went down to reception to request a taxi at 8:00.
I then went to the restaurant to have dinner. I sent a message to Andy and Mark that I was there, so they could stop by when ready if they chose too. I waited at the table for about 15 minutes and had no response, so just ordered my food since they appeared to not be joining me.
I was just finishing my meal around 7:00 when they responded. They had been up in the pool, but would be down in a bit. I waited for them to arrive and they ordered while we talked until I had to leave to get ready for my taxi ride.
Went up to the room and grabbed my bags, then went down to the lobby to check out. They pulled my final bill and took my card and then added the cost of the taxi at this time.
My bags were loaded into the taxi while I finished paying the bill and then I went out and got into it myself.
Was a quick drive to the airport where I grabbed my bags and went inside. I could not see any check in lines for the airlines?
I finally noticed that they were all in long desks going down one side, but there was no signage I could see, not until you were like 10 feet from the desk.
I finally asked the information desk where my airline was and they pointed me to Aisle D (I had been dropped of near Aisle M).
Walked down and found the Air Canada lines, packed full of course. Stood in line about 10 minutes and a guy came down the line checking vaccine status cards. Then another guy pulled me from the line as they had opened a new line on Aisle C, so he walked me over to that one and I ended up being the first one in line.
Got checked in all the way through and the bag checked in as well. Then had boarding passes printed for all flight legs.
I left to find the next stop which would be the immigration line. Most of those were packed as well, but found one that was only about half full. Only then did I notice my phone was missing. I had given it to the ticket agent to show the ticket info on the Air Canada app and he had not returned it.
I had to walk all the way back to the other end of the building and get it. Thankfully it was still sitting on his desk beside the computer keyboard.
Went back to immigration area and found the lines were now even longer, but I went all they way toward the end of the area and found one that was again only about half full. Took about 30 minutes to get through the line, but had no issues getting through the process.
Next was a short walk to the security lines. That process took about 10-15 minutes. Carry on bags went through the x-ray and I walked through the metal detector and had a full wand pass over as well.
Then, just like in Leh, they had to inspect the camera bag due to the amount of electronics in it, but they were good with just the visual inspection and did not need to scan it a second time.
All that done, I left the security area and walked along a path past all the duty free shops to the food/shopping court where I could finally stop and use the restroom! Then I went onward and found the gate hallway and walked along till I found my gate.
Once there, I sat down, sorted a few items in my bags, put my phone on the charger and then wrote in the journal up till current time. Still had 2.5 hours before departure, so will just hang out and kill some time reading or something.
Ended up dozing in and out for most of that time. Actually, a girl that had sat down around same time I did woke me up when the boarding call started. I ran off to use the restroom since I was in the last boarding group, then got into the random standing lines waiting to be called up.
Eventually got boarded. Thankfully the large plane had a decent amount of overhead storage space, plus many of the Indian passengers had checked all their bags and only had small backpacks which they seemed to prefer keeping near their feet.
It is odd that most of the international flights never seem to have the overhead storage issues that plaque nearly every US domestic flight I have ever taken in the last decade.
Flight was ready to take off only about 10 minutes late, so it was now Saturday and we were heading into the air!
Will continue in next entry as it is now a new day.
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