Since this is my first time visiting India (for an extended work stay), I figured I'd try to do a whole series on the adventure here. Not sure if I'll be able to catalog a lot since I'm working and sleeping most of my time here...but i'll give it a go...
The journey consists of 20 hours of flying – SF → Frankfurt → Mumbai – followed by 3.5 hours of driving to Pune (thankfully in the middle of the night...daytime driving would be 5hrs due to traffic). Due to the extensive travel involved in getting here (pretty much the other side of the world) I decided to begin my journey on Friday, arriving Sunday, giving myself a day to get acclimated before heading off to work. My itinerary received the blessing of my boss, so I set off.
I'll have to admit, the journey got off to a rocky start – at the time my itinerary was signed off on, nobody realized that my Friday travel day fell on the Friday before the Memorial Day weekend. Our team has three managers, and the other two had planned vacations for that day (one had a cruise booked, the other had a family camping trip). Since technically I was on a work travel day, it fell on me to run the group that day, which is not really a fun feat considering half the team is in Sac, the other half in Pune, and I would be working out of the United lounge in SFO.
My initial plan of getting to the airport at noon for a 1:50pm flight went out the window. The Davis airporter came at 5:30am so I could be past security and logged in by 8am. Working for 6 hours before 20+ travel hours was a little rough, especially considering that the internet at the lounge is configured for surfing the web, not really for VPN connections (which is odd considering the lounge was designed for business travelers). The positives were a view of the planes coming and going, along with a bored bartender that kept coming by to check on me.
Once boarding time came around, I had to pack-up the mobile office and head over to the gate. Since I had checked in 6 hours before my flight, the gate wasn't even assigned yet. I ended up looking it up on the massive screens before heading to my gate downstairs. Once onboard, I headed upstairs, handed the purser my luggage and settled in for the 11hrs to Frankfurt.
United has a odd seating arrangement for their 747 fleet, placing seats in forward-backward seating, which they swear allows them to fit more seats in the place, while not compromising seat pitch (I'm not really convinced). This ended up being a first for me...as I've never flown backwards before (it was an odd experience). On take-off, you're thrown forward (instead of back in your seat), and on landing all the stuff in front of you fall into your lap as the plane brakes. All in all an interesting experience.
In Frankfurt, the airport is confusing. There are sometimes signs that point in one direction, but in 50ft there would be a sign pointing in the opposing direction. Once I got situated I was able to check my email and grab some food. The one remarkable thing was that the beer-tap here is open. Anyone can just walk up and pour a pint, which is very different from the states. Of course, once it came time to board, it was sheer chaos (I'm told any flight to India was bound to be like this).
This flight was ok (about as ok as another 8hr flight can be after an 11hr one), although the lady I sat next to was just coming back from the Cannes film festival, and was a bit of a diva. She flipped out a few times at the Indian food served on-board, but as we were landing, we struck a conversation about everything from Bollywood films to Indian politics and passed time so quickly that I didn't even notice we landed until we were at the gate.
Once in the airport, it took an hour to get my luggage. I suppose the orange star alliance tag doesn't do anything in Mumbai in terms of priority offloading. It then took another 45 min to clear customs as the security here was surprisingly tight. Then I found my driver outside and headed on the 3.5hr journey to Pune. I tried to strike a conversation with the driver, but his English wasn't very good, and so I ended up napping most of the trip. We made a pit stop so he could pick up some coffee, and after a quick nap we were pulling into the hotel at an early 5am check-in time. All in all, from davis to hotel took an entire 33ish hours...not exactly the easiest trip to make.
I'll have to admit, the journey got off to a rocky start – at the time my itinerary was signed off on, nobody realized that my Friday travel day fell on the Friday before the Memorial Day weekend. Our team has three managers, and the other two had planned vacations for that day (one had a cruise booked, the other had a family camping trip). Since technically I was on a work travel day, it fell on me to run the group that day, which is not really a fun feat considering half the team is in Sac, the other half in Pune, and I would be working out of the United lounge in SFO.
My initial plan of getting to the airport at noon for a 1:50pm flight went out the window. The Davis airporter came at 5:30am so I could be past security and logged in by 8am. Working for 6 hours before 20+ travel hours was a little rough, especially considering that the internet at the lounge is configured for surfing the web, not really for VPN connections (which is odd considering the lounge was designed for business travelers). The positives were a view of the planes coming and going, along with a bored bartender that kept coming by to check on me.
Once boarding time came around, I had to pack-up the mobile office and head over to the gate. Since I had checked in 6 hours before my flight, the gate wasn't even assigned yet. I ended up looking it up on the massive screens before heading to my gate downstairs. Once onboard, I headed upstairs, handed the purser my luggage and settled in for the 11hrs to Frankfurt.
This flight was ok (about as ok as another 8hr flight can be after an 11hr one), although the lady I sat next to was just coming back from the Cannes film festival, and was a bit of a diva. She flipped out a few times at the Indian food served on-board, but as we were landing, we struck a conversation about everything from Bollywood films to Indian politics and passed time so quickly that I didn't even notice we landed until we were at the gate.
Once in the airport, it took an hour to get my luggage. I suppose the orange star alliance tag doesn't do anything in Mumbai in terms of priority offloading. It then took another 45 min to clear customs as the security here was surprisingly tight. Then I found my driver outside and headed on the 3.5hr journey to Pune. I tried to strike a conversation with the driver, but his English wasn't very good, and so I ended up napping most of the trip. We made a pit stop so he could pick up some coffee, and after a quick nap we were pulling into the hotel at an early 5am check-in time. All in all, from davis to hotel took an entire 33ish hours...not exactly the easiest trip to make.
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