The whole trip to India went really well. As expected the flight on Air Canada from Vancouver to Heathrow was packed full but I still managed to get about 4 hours sleep and arrived feeling pretty chipper in to London. There was some confusion about my ticket in Vancouver – apparently Travel Cuts had made my reservation but not my booking (not sure on the nuances of the travelspeak there) and although I had at one point been issued seats the check-in people at Vancouver actually didn't have me anywhere on the plane. There were a few anxious moments when I wondered whether I was going to get on the plane but I did. Based on this experience I decided that the first job at Heathrow would be to find the Emirates desk and make sure they had a record of me flying with them. They did and I checked in at that time too meaning I didn't need to be back at Heathrow until about 8 pm (for my 10:00 pm flight).
So I went off to meet my friend Delia at Rasa's restaurant near Oxford Circus station. We had a delightful lunch, a wander around, a stop at the National Gallery and hit a used book store on Charing Cross Road where I picked up two books for a pound each for the plane.
I headed back to Heathrow about 4:00 pm – much later and I would have hit rush hour traffic. Plus by this time I was beginning to feel a bit sleepy despite several coffees along the way. I thought it would be better to be at the airport in case I was overcome with sleepiness and started to nod off wherever I happened to be.
I got back to Heathrow in plenty of time and was wandering around waiting for the gate for my flight to be posted when I saw a young Indian girl run up to a friend, grab her friend's arm and start pulling her towards one of the big duty free shops. She was obviously very excited about something so I decided to follow her to see what the buzz was about and was rewarded with an SRK sighting (and some very crap pictures – I will obviously never make it as a paparazzo – or is it paparazza?).
SRK is Shah Rukh Khan who is arguably the biggest star in today's Bollywood constellation. In person he was rather underwhelming – he was quite short (maybe 5' 8”), looked absolutely shattered with tiredness and the trademark charisma and energy were nowhere to be seen. Still, it was a bit of a thrill and the reactions of his fans (many of whom were employees of various stores in the airport) was fun to watch.
The Emirates flight from Heathrow toDubai was maybe half full and I got a bank of three seats to myself. Unfortunately I got carried away watching the gorgeous Will Smith in “I am legend” and didn't get anywhere near as much sleep as I should have. Still I felt good on arriving at Dubai and headed out in to the sunshine which was in hindsight a mistake (but I had seven hours and didn't fancy staying at the airport all that time).
Dubai was dusty, incredibly hot and obviously not built for pedestrians. It was like watching the traffic along the Pat Bay Highway – almost every car had only a single occupant and many of the vehicles were huge SUVs. I crossed a bridge that was still under construction and saw many workers – the majority of whom looked Malayali (from Kerala) – doing a variety of menial tasks. One poor guy was even washing light standards with a rag and a pail of dirty water. Why does a painted light standard on a bridge that no one is likely to walk across need to be washed I wondered?
After about an hour of wandering I'd had enough. It was incredibly hot and I couldn't seem to get close to the water along which I wanted to walk. I headed back to the airport and paid an outrageous sum ($13) to take an absolutely fabulous shower in the health club of the International Hotel in the airport. Worth every penny!
I had seen a sign earlier that said Emirates passengers with a layover of more than four hours (that's me!) were entitled to a free meal so after the shower I presented myself at the restaurant. Unfortunately it turned out that Emirates policy is not to offer the free meal to anyone who leaves the airport and since my boarding pass had been stamped by immigration I had to admit that I'd been outside. I was more than a bit ticked off as I had asked the cabin crew on the Heathrow-Dubai flight about going outside the airport (I wasn't sure if a visa was needed for Canadians) and nobody had mentioned this. So I had to buy my own lunch – a very bizarre clubhouse sandwich with anemic, limp fries and a pot of tea for about $10.
Waiting for that last flight seemed the longest part but eventually we headed off on another half empty plane where the flight crew encouraged us to pick another seat if the one we had didn't suit us. I picked one right near the emergency exit where I had tons of leg room as there were no seats ahead of me. It was a quick flight in to Trivandrum (3.5 hours) and on our way over I could see the lighthouse at Kovalam as well as the mosque at nearby Vizhinjam.
My luggage appeared quickly (I thought it might be buried at the very bottom of the cargo hold and take hours to emerge) and except for a heart stopping moment when the immigration guy said “Your passport expires in two months” (my passport expires in June 2009 and for some reason he thought we were in 2009 already) it was smooth sailing in to India. I would really recommend Trivandrum as an entry point for those of you planning a trip to India – you could head straight to Kovalam (a $10 taxi ride) and get acclimatized in relatively low culture-shock surroundings before heading off to explore the rest of the country. Alternatively you could stay in Trivandrum which has some nice moderately priced hotels (in the $40-$70 dollar range).
My flight arrived at 8:20 pm (about 20 minutes early) and my friend Joy (see photo - in his England National Team soccer shirt which I bought for him in Victoria) was there to meet me with a taxi and by 9:30 pm I was sitting on the balcony of my hotel sipping a cold beer (thanks Joy for stocking the fridge for me) and wishing there was some way I could make my room as cold as the contents of the beer bottle (the rooms in this guesthouse are ceiling fan-cooled – no airconditioning). Since then it's been lots of sweating, not much swimming (the sea is really too rough), reading, eating and relaxing. Perhaps in June, when things should be cooled somewhat by monsoon rains, I'll decide to undertake some of the less enjoyable duties on my to-do list (the dentist, a trip to Chennai and perhaps an attempt to see the production of the Nano in Pune). More on how I spend my time in Kovalam in a day or two.
Here are some Kovalams views - the view from my guesthouse and a view of the guesthouse itself (the guesthouse is called Marina Kovalam, the strange black rectangle is a British guest that I inadvertently caught in the photo and didn't want to show online without her permission).
