Getting to India: Our trip to India started off with breakfast at Savan Vegas. After we finished eating, we were dropped off at Savannakhet Airport for our Lao Airlines flight to Bangkok. We had a five hour delay in Bangkok before boarding our Thai Airways flight to Delhi. Although the flight was scheduled for 3 hours and 40 minutes, we were placed in a holding pattern for 15 minutes due to plane traffic. We made our way through immigration, making an extra stop to submit a health questionnaire due to the swine flu outbreak, collected our luggage and met our driver for the ride to the hotel. To get to India, we ended up spending more time inside airports than we did in the air!
The entire country of India uses a single time zone which is an hour and a half different from Laos. The time difference didn't affect us much, except at dinner time, which is traditionally later than in the U.S. Indians have a breakfast in the morning, lunch around 1:00 or 2:00, an early evening snack, and then dinner between 8:00 and 11:00. Our tour package included breakfast and one major meal, which we took at dinnertime. We were always there at the earliest time, which was 7:00 or 7:30.
Delhi: Delhi served as the capital of the Mughal Empire from 1649 to 1857. After gaining control of India, the British moved the capital to Calcutta, but in 1919 announced that it was to move back to Delhi. A new city, referred to as New Delhi, was built adjacent to and just south of Delhi. When India gained independence from British rule in 1947, it kept New Delhi as its capital.
There is much construction going on now in Delhi as the city constructs a new elevated metro system in preparation for the 2010 Commonwealth Games. There are also many trees and very few skyscrapers in Delhi, which help keeps air pollution from accumulating within city limits. Also cutting down on air pollution is the city's complete conversion to alternative energy buses and autorickshaws. These compressed natural gas vehicles are easily recognized by their green and yellow paint job. Other autorickshaws throughout the country may use diesel and are differentiated with the use of black and yellow paint.
The Metropolitan Hotel: After a quick ride through the street-lit city, we made arrangements to meet our driver at 9:00 the next morning, checked into our hotel and went straight to bed.