India, the home of Taj Mahal, a country so rich in history and culture, is sadly not a popular holiday destination for us Filipinos. I'm sure one hindrance is the lack of direct flights from Manila to New Delhi, making travel to India a time consuming and expensive undertaking.
To reach India, my friends and I had to fly via Cathay Pacific and had a 9 hour stopover in Hong Kong.
We spent our short stint in Hong Kong window shopping,
To reach India, my friends and I had to fly via Cathay Pacific and had a 9 hour stopover in Hong Kong.
We spent our short stint in Hong Kong window shopping,
walking,
and taking scenic boat rides.
Before long, it was time to fly again and finally get to India! Travel time from Hong Kong to Delhi is 5 hours.
I chose a meal of Tandoori spiced fish with cumin basmati rice and tomato green bean masala, up in the air, as I wanted my taste buds to already get familiar with the spicy Indian food that I will surely consume in the days to come.
The flight attendants conducted aircraft disinsection before we landed at New Delhi.
We arrived at Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi just before midnight, India time. Do note that India is 2 hours and 30 minutes behind the Philippines.
We were too lazy to process our visas back home so we opted for visa on arrival.
There was only one officer manning the visa on arrival counter and he took his sweet time checking our documents. He probably spent 10 minutes to process each passport.
An advantage of getting visa on arrival is that one can skip the long immigration line for foreigners. I just showed my passport with the visa on arrival stamp to an immigration officer that was not serving any passengers and I was good to go.
We met our driver Ranjeet of Leisure India Travels at the arrival area of the airport.
Our driver brought us to our hotel, Piccadily New Delhi.
Piccadily, which used to be a Hilton hotel, had a gigantic and impressive lobby.
Though we arrived in the dead of the night, we were still served tea as a welcome drink.
Our room was modern, spacious, comfortable, and clean.
Wished we could have slept late in our cozy room but we had an early call time the next day.
Tomorrow,our much-awaited Indian adventure will truly begin!
