Leaving on a Jet Plane...

Today we left for Mumbai, India. We caught an airport bus from Itaewon at about 6 in the morning. Turns out we were wrong about the flight time so we were about four hours early for our flight. We got the usual Subway sub from the airport. After smaller portions in Asia it really is startling when you look at a 12" sub! The bread was a tad stale but overall it was still glorious. Our flight was TG 629 to Bangkok via Hong Kong. Thai Air has excellent food and great service in business AND economy class it turns out! We were both sad to the see the lady at immigration take our Alien cards away from us before we boarded our flights. I liked being an official ALIEN.

We had to get off of our plane in Hong Kong for 30 mins while they cleaned it and then get back on for Bangkok. When we arrived in Bangkok we rushed through the security check thinking that we would relax at our gate and window shop, etc. Turns out that Bangkok airport is like a prison where you wait for your gate to open and show your pass to get in and once in you don't leave. No bathrooms were open before our gate was open except for ones at one gate that we finally allowed to walk down to. We watched some Grey's Anatomy on Justin's ipod to pass some time.

It definitely was an eye-opener landing in India. You know you're in a "developing" country (aka 3rd world) when there are flies in the airport and men in uniform when you step off the plane. There was TONS of construction so the airport was a total mess and was a little confusing. There were security checks EVERYWHERE! Outside it was dusty, dirty, hot, bug-infested, and filled with many shouting Indians. We walked down the ramp and saw a man with a sign for us so we knew that was our hotel. He and THREE other men drove us to the hotel. Two men sat in the back with our bags on their laps, two in the front, and us in the middle. They played American dance/hip hop songs for us which added to the air of absurdity. The long drive to the hotel was startling. I've never seen slums like that before in my life. No seat belts, tons of honking, lost of autorickshaws, and tons of men just hanging out on the sides of the street. We drove by tons of shanty towns, just pure poor squalor. "Dear God, what have I gotten myself into??!!"