Airportwimb. Who are these strange people sleeping on the floor at airports?

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Originally Posted by Ganpati's Goonerz--AFC's Aboriginal Fertility Cult

Delhi's old airport took hours but the new one is well quick. But when I went to Costa Rica about 8 years ago, I had a 4 hour stop-over in Miami. Took 2 hours to get through immigration and then had to get my bag and carry it {cos it wanted money for the trolley} and deal with security.

It was only because the nice Yank let me skip the X-ray queue after a while that I made my flight. I told him that at all other airports, your bags just stay with the airline, that I'd been sold a ticket by AA with 4 hours between flights and that I was probably gonna miss my connection given how big this x-ray queue was. When he found I was a Brit and was simply trying to get from London to Costa Rica, he said I could leave the queue and just go through.

Lovely chap, as I say. I'd have been stuck in Miami for a day and had to deal with changing my flight etc.

Will never fly into or via the US again.

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US airports are the worst - JFK security is sheer carnage even if you're flying business class. Hopeless.

Been to Mumbai and Bangalore airports quite a few times and always found the immigration and security process to be very quick. Possibly because the % of passengers who are foreigners is far smaller than in airports like JFK or Heathrow. They also always seem to have a lot of immigration people working.

Now the trip from the airport into those cities was less palatable :puke:

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Originally Posted by WES

US airports are the worst - JFK security is sheer carnage even if you're flying business class. Hopeless.

Been to Mumbai and Bangalore airports quite a few times and always found the immigration and security process to be very quick. Possibly because the % of passengers who are foreigners is far smaller than in airports like JFK or Heathrow. They also always seem to have a lot of immigration people working.

Now the trip from the airport into those cities was less palatable :puke:

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Dunno about Bangalore but totally true for Mumbai. 2 hours to get to Colaba where the Gateway to India and Taj hotel are - also the cheapest backpacker hotels for my sorts.

Delhi used to be almost as bad but they've built loads of motorways linking to the middle-class new town suburbs like Gurgaon, so it now takes a fraction of the time.

In the old days, Delhi airport only had a tiny bar and this little cabin that sold stale samosas. {Now it's all modern with a food-hall, sports bars with western food etc.} But back in the day, the one cafe at Mumbai offered chicken and chips or fish and chips. Touch compared to Delhi.

Glad you agree with me about the US. Would have thought that they'd have made it fast for you posh business class types. Bit socialist of them to make it shît for everyone. Ironically, I flew first class Lon-Del a couple of times and the Moscow first class lounge was great if you're only used to economy.

Also, in first on the plane, they had unlimited Veuve Cliq. One trip I did 3 bottles on the Del-Mos leg and another Mos-LHR.

The stewardesses were retired shot-putters. The bronze medal winners worked in economy, the silver medallists in business and the Olympic champions in first. {That's why they never had terrorists. Had they attempted to get into the flight deck bit, Svetlana would have ripped their heads off and shot-putted them down to the back of the jet without bouncing.}

One time, there was just an oligarch gangster and me in first. After sitting down, she asked if we wanted a drink. I said champers. She said no, only water or orange juice until we're airborne. I said no probs, just bring me a glass of Veuve when you're allowed to.

She served the gangster his juice and then came back to me with a glass of champers and put her finger to her lips saying"sshhh." I thanked her profusely.

Civilised people back then, pre-Putin.

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Originally Posted by Luis Anaconda

Also my experience - security is particular good and quick.

I also have the advantage of going straight through in Munich, walking past the queues of moaning Brits waiting for passport checks

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Tempting fate to post this a couple of hours before flying - but once again Heathrow security was excellent. Save for the bit when I was putting my stuff into trays and my trousers came down as my belt was in said trays. Fortunately wearing sensible underwear

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Originally Posted by Luis Anaconda

Tempting fate to post this a couple of hours before flying - but once again Heathrow security was excellent. Save for the bit when I was putting my stuff into trays and my trousers came down as my belt was in said trays. Fortunately wearing sensible underwear

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Phwoar. Back in 5.

Ganps old stick - you do realise that none of what you say actually happened don't you? India is basically just a giant open sewer with a handful of Brahmins who are quite good at I.T.

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Originally Posted by Herbert Augustus Chapman

Ganps old stick - you do realise that none of what you say actually happened don't you? India is basically just a giant open sewer with a handful of Brahmins who are quite good at I.T.

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Herbs, old boy, been too long. Hope you're well.

Re: the manikaran from Manikaran, the glw has it in her ear and it's been certified by the Gem Institute of America as D IF {D colour, the best, Internally Flawless, the best - as you'd expect for Parvati.}

Lovely people in that Gurdwara {Sikh temple.} Years ago, went in there in the middle of the night with Ket munchies and asked if they had anything to eat, so they rustled us up some chai, chapatis and pickles.

Last time I went, taking my French mate for his first trip to India, on our first night up there, he woke me up with a nightmare about his dog, so unable to get back to sleep, I went to the temple and bathed. Got out of the water, wrapped a shawl around my waist and went onto the bridge to cool down, looking upstream to get the breeze in my face.

Then dawn began to break and I watched the rays then the sun itself rise over the mountains. After a bit, the sunlight hit the water in such a way that it turned the Holy River into a shimmering, molten gold. Never seen anything like that before.

Though if you want to put your hand into your pocket, you can donate here to help us get an eRickshaw for Monu. We've had about £800 in private donations other than the few quid on that page - first part of the deposit's been paid and paper work is being done. When that's all done we'll give all the rest of the cash and the balance will be paid by Monu over 18 months. {And as they charge about 30% for 18 months, the more money now the better.}

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfund...term=9r53yzZ29

It'll cost about 1.9lakh {1,90,000 - Rs.190k, £1.9k} and we'll have about half of that as the deposit. During lockdown, we raised about £3k so he could build a fire on the street each day and cook food for his {and some of our} fellow homeless rickshaw drivers etc. We had so much that we were able to send money to an old mate, AJ, who was a shoeshine boy in Delhi but had moved to a village over the other side of India, Bodhgaya where Buddha obtained enlightenment - for polio victims.

Him and his missus and every other adult in the village have polio, so after we sent him money for food, when he told us everyone else there was hungry, we sent him more several times and he got them all to queue up, be given a mask and then a huge bag of food every week.

So come on Herbs, cough up. Ganpati bless, mate.

JAI SHREE GANESHA.

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