Well after a long and stressful journey we arrived in Hyderabad. The stress probably began when we booked the tickets and my mantra of everything will be fine suddenly seemed like the biggest pile of nonsense ever. Denial can only work short term.
When we arrived in Frankfurt we had to go and get our boarding passes at the Lufthansa desk only to be told that the flight was overbooked and we were going to be put on standby. At this moment I thought the sky had caved in and I was never going to get to Hyderabad. After much queuing and shouting at the kids for just being kids, we were issued boarding passes an given seats on the flight, not together though. Jasmine and Dylan would have to sit together beside a stranger. I did wonder for a few seconds,too long, whether I should try and rectify it.
Landing in Delhi airport 16 hours after we had set out we all felt a little tired. Jasmine trying to be grown up and not complain but this was not working and Dylan decided that anything I was going to ask, tell or order him to do, he was doing the exact opposite. I had a sudden culture shock in that you never let your kids cry or ignore them when they are upset. I got over the culture shock and stuck to my normal reaction. We had to collect our bags and then go to the domestic transit lounge, which is accessed via a lot of policemen and the international terminal Do not ever leave the airport, which I learned is not the sensible thing to do. I had no idea where I was going or supposed to do. So I thought et some local currency at least if you need to get coffee, taxi, alcohol you can get it. The queue was huge at the BdC so I asked a policeman where I needed to go and he pointed me towards he security back into the area I had just left. He wanted to see my ticket and when I could not produce one. He office where I needed to collect the ticket was in the domestic terminal and all I had was a number on a piece of paper. He asked to see my passport and low and behold suddenly I was bribing an official in an Indian airport. I had left my money in my passport, I have never apologized so much.
My experience of Indian people from being in the airport at Delhi was really positive. Everyone was really helpful even when I was asking in an hysterical voice if they would mind if I bunked the queue in order to get my tickets for the flight to Hyderabad. I did only have 15 minutes to get tickets and checkin for the flight. I did make and was never so glad to get on a plane and know my journey was nearly over. Normally I love the journey, the excitement and adrenelin from going to a new place. Probably now I know on my own with 2 small children on what turned out to be a 26 hour journey, I am not the easy going traveler I thought I was.
