Category — Egypt

Getting out of India was just as bizarre as arriving..  Did you know that all passengers arriving in India get sprayed with pesticide?  It’s quite funny because the flight attendants walk up and down the aisles with aerosol cans, presumably to stop you bringing nasty germs into India.. ha ha…

Delhi is a major hub so a lot of flights are en route to somewhere else and leave at crazy hours.  Ours was leaving at 5.30am and so we allowed ourselves plenty of time to get to the airport and left the hotel about 1.30.  Lucky we did because check-in took about 45 minutes – the clerks like to chatter amongst themselves while they’re doing your boarding passes.  They have a grand old time but we were sitting at 6 different locations all over the plane.  Could we sit together?  Oh really – ok, no problem.  I”ll change it for you. 

Only passengers are allowed into the airline terminal and you must show your tickets and passports (plus go through baggage xray) to get in the door.  So we had already had one check; then the check of passports at check in; then you must have another check by a uniformed officer to go through another door; then immigration; then the baggage xray again with yet another check of passports.  At the baggage xray, you also have to have all your hand luggage stamped.  These guys were also having a whale of a time; laughing and hugging people they knew etc etc.

When they announced our flight and we went to board, yet another check of passports by another uniformed officer and also a check that our hand luggage was stamped – what a surprise -we had a couple of bags that didn’t have the stamp.  They made us go all the way back to the clowns at xray and put the bags through again and we had to get one of them to get out his little Colop stamper and make sure this time he actually stamped it.

Meanwhile, the plane is waiting for us to have a bag filled with colouring pencils put through xray!  They don’t care about liquids or laptops but watch out for those colouring pencils carried in an open bag by a 7 year old!!

[Read more →]