New Dehli (almost)

All airports look the same, cool metal beams over head with large tinted windows and long couridors some times with flat escalators if they are more modern.  On our trip we have found our way in, out and around many airports. We estimate that in the last five months, we have spent almost three days of our lives (about 65 hours) in airports. The longest of these layovers was in New Dehli, India on our way from Bangkok to Milan.

When we originally bought our tickets for this trip, we planned to spend three days in New Delhi. But sometime in the middle of our stay in the Philippines, we decided to extend our time in Thailand, which meant only spending a day in New Delhi, 17 hours to be exact. We'd arrive at 9:00 am Sunday and fly out at 2:00 am Monday morning. We figured that would give us enough time to store our bags, catch a taxi and see some of the city, the Taj Mahal and maybe even grab some genuine Indian food for dinner.

However, when we checked into our flight in Bangkok we were informed that because we didn't have a visa for India, we could not leave the airport...for 17 hours. This was, to put it simply, a bummer. The thought of spending all day and half the night in an airport - in a country we've never visited and would love to see at least a little of - made us antsy and we were really upset at ourselves for not looking into the visa issue earlier.

That is, until we arrived in New Dehli and saw this sign.

The outdoor air temperature was 38 degrees celsius (100 degrees F) and the air pollution was so thick we couldn't see more than a mile outside the airport windows. We both agreed our first real visit to India could wait, at least until the monsoons cooled things down and cleared the air a bit.