Off to India

My adventure started on January 6th as I was dropped off at the train station in Solana Beach for the train to Los Angeles Union Station. Since this was the Sunday after New Year's many of the college students were going back to Santa Barbara, UCLA, and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and it was a sold out train. This created some problems for luggage as you had to bring your luggage up the stairs and put it in a secured area. Well of course I had the biggest suitcase and carry ons but I managed as I knew this was only the beginning. After getting up to Union Station I walked the short 5 minutes over to where the bus to LAX was, bought a ticket and waited for about 20 minutes until the bus arrived. The bus took about 25 minutes to get to the airport and I was dropped right at the international Tom Bradley terminal. It only took me about 10 minutes to check in as I had arrived a little early and there was not much of a line. With Emirates I had an 8 hour layover in Dubai so had booked a complimentary night hotel with them. I asked for my voucher and was given my information. You do have to make a reservation ahead of time. I got something to eat and then went to the gate when it opened. I was seated next to a doctor from Los Angeles who was going to India to help with the people. I would highly recommend Emirates as they keep their planes very clean, have a full choice of movies, games, music and their food is very good and plentiful along with the wines and drinks. Needless to say I tried not to drink too much but did not sleep much either. Decided to just watch movies. I arrived in Dubai around 8P and went thru immigrations which took about 45 minutes-- long lines and very slow. After getting thru there I continued on to the front door where the Emirates transfer desk was and I checked in for my transfer to the hotel. After about 10 minutes my bus arrived and I was transferred to the Copthorne Airport Hotel. Here I checked in and was given a meal voucher and a room with an assigned wake up call so I would not miss my 4:40A flight to Delhi.

Up at my wake-up call and down at the lobby by 3A so I could continue my flight to Delhi India. One thing I did learn after returning home DON'T USE YOUR PHONE as they don't have any plans and my short time there to check email both ways was over $300-- needless to say I did get this reduced but learned my lesson. Pay and use their wi-fi!!!
I had already been issued my boarding pass so was able to avoid the check-in. The Dubai airport at this time of the morning was so busy as you would have thought it was the middle of the day. On this next leg from Dubai to Delhi I was able to experience their business class which was really nice-- the beds, the food, and service.



After arrival in Delhi I was met by the
representative from Ventours, our wonderful company that we spend the next 10 days with, and escorted to the beautiful Oberoi Gurgaon in which they say is 15 minutes away but took us almost an hour to get there with traffic.  If you can  imagine 15 lanes of traffic with no lane markers and everybody just going for the same area-- in their cars, busses, tuk tuks, and even the sacred cow on the road.  It was an unbelievable sight.  Over the next few days we got used to it but for the first impression I will never forget it.