A year in India, a year in the world – or a year in airports?

I just arrived back from a week’s holiday (that’s vacation for any Americans) in South Africa. Two friends of mine M and R took a year off last year and went traveling. They completely fell in love with Africa and have gone back there for a vacation. They invited me along and I’m very happy I decided to go with them. They really provide an excellent service!! They met me at the airport, drove me around all week, arranged the itinerary and accommodation and did a way better job than I would have done. R is very organized. We spend the week driving around the Kruger park. To set the scene I’ve borrowed form the South African national parks website Kruger is home to an impressive number of species: 336 trees, 49 fish, 34 amphibians, 114 reptiles, 507 birds and 147 mammals.


It was really great to see the animals in the wild. For me the biggest surprise is how well camouflaged the animals are – quite honestly a few times I missed even large animals (like elephants and giraffes) even thought they were standing less than 10 meters away! On top of that the park is littered with tree trunks that look like leopards, stones that look like lions and various other things (I suppose the animals that didn’t merge in with the fauna were pretty quickly eaten up).



The journey back was long. Friday lunchtime I flew from the Kruger Park to Johannesburg. I spent Friday in the hotel in Johannesburg (I thought it best not to go exploring Johannesburg on my own). Then Saturday back to the airport to fly to Dubai, then onto Mumbai and finally from Mumbai to Delhi. Fortunately I got an earlier flight from Dubai to Mumbai. It was still 3 days and four flights and this got me to thinking about how much I have traveled this year. So I wrote down all the flights I took, both personal and business. So I’ve traveled 186,865 km (115,856 miles) by air this year. That large number comprises 47 flights, 11 airlines, 8 delays of more than 90 minutes, 2 missed flight connections, 20 flights lasting more than 8 hours. The number surprises me because one year I went on 120 flights and it felt like less but that was pre 9-11 and mostly short haul. What is most remarkable is that I have traveled to 5 continents during my year in India!!! There is some debate, I always believed there were only 5 continents – Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia (Oceania), Americas. There are others who would split the Americas into north and south and declare Antarctica as a continent but even still it’s quite an impressive breadth of travel. Talking with M and R world travelers they talked about how they also covered 5 continents (or 6 if you split north and south America) in one year but with one big difference – they took a year off work!!!

I know I’m very lucky to have the opportunity to travel so much. But most of the time I’m traveling into and out of Delhi airport which is hideously inefficient. But maybe Mumbai is close by. Today I changed from the international to domestic terminals. Total time required from disembarking the aircraft to arriving at domestic terminal: 70 minutes!! How? Passport control, baggage collection, customs screening of every bag, waiting for the bus, traveling in the bus, waiting for people to get off the bus (with all their bags). I was in no hurry as it was about 12 hours before my flight!! I went to change the flight – after much discussion she agreed to let me pay the difference of 500 rupees (about $13) to change my flight - she thought it was too much to pay for an earlier flight – I guess everything is relative!

Before I sign off, I must share one very strange experience with you. I was lucky and got an emergency exit seat from Dubai to Mumbai. Every silver lining has a cloud. First of all the dragoness air hostess get telling me to pick things up (I know it’s her job but usually they are not so insistent or unpleasant). Then a Muslim man walked over with a rug, spoke to the man traveling next to me that he was sorry to disturb him. Then Muslim laid down his carpet and started praying! I suppose this was the only part of the plane facing east (or maybe west) but still. I think I would have been fine except every time he stood up his fat bottom nearly touched my face. And Muslim there’s a lot of standing up and kneeling down in Muslim prayers. But what really annoyed me was that he completely ignored me – talking only to the man next to me who was not really put out at all. I was so mad. It probably didn’t help that I had only had 2 hours sleep there was definitely due cause. Aaaaargh!!

Well as far as I know, there are no plans for me to leave India until December so there’s a reasonable chance that this blog content will reflect the title of it!! You never know!