Delhi Belly

I'm blogging to you out of pain, frustration and anger. This may not be the most appropriate blog to write following the most epically beautiful 16 days of my life, but I need to vent and I need you to have pity on me right now.

It must have all started going wrong when we found out we needed visas for India. That was the 1st, and unfortunately only the beginning, of this long string of unfortunate events (that may or may not be due to sever lack of planning).

As you may remember, we had to buy a completely new ticket from Bangkok (bkk) to Kathmandu (ktm) (re-booking #2): After rescheduling our tickets out of Delhi for a few hours earlier (re-booking #1) only to be denied entrance on the plane. Hence rebooking #2.... Not that big of a deal. Got to ktm early, started are incredibly glorious trek early and had a few extra days in Nepal. Great. So great. Then the rumors of a Moaist strike started to circulate. Foreigners were advised to leave before the 20th of December in order to avoid all dangerous situations (whoa, I guess we really are in an unstable 3rd world country).
This is where this awfully uncomfortable situation started.

Yesterday afternoon, we got invited to have dinner at Andy's Nepali neighbor (from Flagstaff)'s family's house in Kathmandu. It was so special to have been able to experience a Nepali home, be welcomed into the family, be served Nepali tea (which I seriously couldn't get enough of) and or course (dum dum dum....) be fed Nepali food. Ugh. Still, even the though of that dinner makes me want to vom. The actual eating of the food was rather enjoyable. But I'll tell you what was NOT enjoyable... the next 24 hours (and counting) of severe abdominal pain along with other bodily functions I've been advised not to write about.
This is a major contributor to this incredibly uncomfortable situation.


After hearing about this Maoist situation, my incredibly generous parents book us 1st class tickets from ktm to bkk via Delhi on Indian Air (Indian Air?! This should have been a red flag from the beginning...). We got up this morning to get to the airport 2 and a half hours before our flight (just to be safe) and, SURPRISE! Flight is delayed... nearly 3 hours! and of course we miss the flight from Delhi to bkk. And of course, when we got off the plane here, NOBODY would take responsibility. The brought us to the transit area and had us sit and wait for hours and hours with nobody around to talk to and help us. Every time some one official would walk by, they would brush us aside and tell us it wasn't their problem and no they couldn't help us. It was chaos. People yelling, spit flying... If I weren't so upset I probably would have found it quit comical. But I was on the verge of tears. I felt like throwing up again. My clothes smelled like I'd been trekking in them for weeks (because I had) my bag was heavy, it was hot. I just wanted to be in Manila.
Nobody would help us. We couldn't leave the transit terminal because we didn't have visas. Like those poor souls in purgatory, were were clinging to every person who walked in through the doors from the outside. But nobody cared. Then I decided to play the money card and yelled, "Excuse me! Is this how Indian Air treats their first class passengers!? Outrageous!" Then they were on me like a bunch of seagull on a piece of bread. They took us to a very nice lounge, gave us a meal and took very good care of us from there. They put us on a Thai Airways flight to bkk which was a total upgrade from Indian air.
Its amazing how different we were treated after they found out we had spend money for a 1st class ticket. I guarantee that if I hadn't said anything about the 1st class we would still be in Delhi. Why is that?
Manila today and I can't wait to shower with out my crocs on!!!