Airports in India

After a twelve-hour day of travels to the Taj Mahal the alarm rang at 5:30am and we were off to the airport by 6:00 for our flight to Ladakh.

Fortunately, I am traveling with Sedona who has travelled within India before, as I wouldn’t have known to tag my carry-on items. This is important when going through security.

We made our way to security where we were the redundancy begins. After placing ones belongings in a tray, you receive a paddle with a matching number to the one in your tray, in order to make sure the correct valuables end up with the correct person. Next, it is important to get into the appropriate line, male or female. The women go behind a glass box and curtain to get frisked, while the men are frisked publically. This line, despite there being few people, seemed to take a very long time. Finally it was my turn to go behind the curtain, and I realized what was taking so long. After being frisked, the security lady asked me about my trip to India, and we chatted some time about my trip to the Taj Mahal. She informed me that she was planning a trip there soon.

We now collected our carry-on luggage, which each now had a stamp on the tag, which would be important later, as it would be checked yet again. Our boarding passes also now carried a stamp, which would be checked another three times.

It was a one-hour flight to Leh, where the terrain changed dramatically. In no time we were flying over huge pristine Himalayan mountains. We weren’t in Delhi anymore. The landscape of Ladakh is barren but for a few leafless trees and snow capped mountains. Without those mountains it almost looks like the Sahara Desert. As we made our way to the hotel, the one distinction we noticed between Delhi and Ladakh is that the stray dogs are much furrier. Important to note.

We arrived at the hotel, had tea, felt quite good and relaxed despite the altitude (11,000 feet), feeling the need to whisper as the silence is deafening compared to Delhi and we didn’t want to disturb it. This until an Indian couple comes to tea and commenced to smoke, talk loudly on their cell phones, and take pictures.

We were encouraged to go rest in our room for a bit, until we would go do some local sightseeing. Not particularly feeling the need, we obliged. However we didn’t realize we had been sprinkled with fairy dust, which took its effects immediately upon becoming horizontal. We promptly passed out for six hours and were awoken only for lunch, which we declined for more sleep. A few hours later, we were awoken again for our local sightseeing. Upon seeing we had still been sleeping, the manager encouraged us to go back to sleep, which we did. Finally, we awoke at 7:00pm and noticed it was getting darker, and decided since we were out of water, we ought to make the effort, for the first time today, of getting out of bed.

One final important note is that high altitude has the effect of being put under laughing gas. The thin air results in intense bouts of the giggles between naps.