We are in Delhi

WOW,

Ok so we left all the packing until the last minute on thursday 30th August, packing to travel to Delhi via Singapore for 9 days. I don't know why but I felt the need to have a big clean out of all the clothes in the cupboard, I mean packing 3 hours before our flight is bad enough but I start spring cleaning the house...

We got to the airport around 12.30pm and the flight scheduled to leave at 3.45pm. Melbourne to Singapore a 7 hour flight. Fantastic seats Tim booked (new a380 and we got the front emergency row right behind business on the upper deck. Massive aircraft) highly recommend Singapore airlines. Mountains of food and drink exactly what i did not want on a 7 hour flight. This was the longest flight I had been on to date. So 7 hours to Singapore with a 5 hour stop over in Singapore before continuing on to Delhi. Another big WOW! Singapore airport is huge...... I'm really sounding like a novice traveller now. I have never seen 6 travellators In a row just to get to the departure gate. Sky rail to go from terminal to terminal..... Really makes Australia look like a little remote island compare to some other parts of this world. So the flight was set to leave at 2.15 Singapore time 4.15am Melbourne time. And still no sleep. Well except for the 5 minute blocks of shut eye in the singapore terminal. At last onto the flight bound for Delhi. Seats not as good this time but still very good compared to Australia's airlines. More food, more drink and me constantly head butting the seat infront due To a lack of sleep, and Tim snoring like a diesel engine in the seat next to me. All I wanted to do was drink 10litres of water and sleeeeeeseeeep, but this just wasn't going to happen.

Finally we land in Delhi. As usual we pick the worst possible line to get through immigration. Can't say they were friendly immigration officers but Australia's are just as personality-less. Coming from Melbourne we are not used to the humidity and we are both dressed in Denim jeans t shirt and jumper. Once through imigration we grabbed the bags and out through customs we go.

Ok so now the nerves are really hitting me. What are we going to encounter. SCI have organized for Rahul to meet us at the airport and take us to our hotel. Does Rahul know why we are here? Yes? Surrogacy being illegal in Australia and with so many narrow minded Aussies towards "gay" and same sex relationships, let alone anything to do with surrogacy I suppose we were imagining the worst coming to India. OH How wrong where we. Rahul is awesome. He is sooooooooo very friendly and he knows exactly why we are here. He knows everyone who has been down this same path before us, at first I was a little embarressed with some of his questions, only because we haven't really talked about what we are doing with anyone else on great length, but Rahul has seen it all before, he made us feel so very comfortable and welcomed. Rahul insisted he push the trolley with our bags, Im not use to that. Then when we got to the car before I could even grab my bag off the trolley there was 2 guys and Rahul loading them into Rahul's car (talk about service) even my back pack with all the money and passports was taken and put in the boot. As we were getting into the car one of these "helpers" was standing in front of me with his hand out for money???? Wtf in Australia we don't generally tip anything or anyone so I'm not used to this custom, but no Rahul is signaling for me to ignore him and get I'm the car!!! Ok well I couldn't tip him anyhow cos he put my bag with the money into the boot.... HahahHha

Ok so the drive from the airport to the hotel svelte was an experience. No apparent road rules just courtesy and a car horn. It was 6 am so I don't think the roads were busy. I think we are going to get Rahul to drive us around Delhi for sight seeing, it was fun to see how all the road users accommodate each other with a common level of respect. We arrived at the hotel and Rahul gave us his card and told us he would be available 24/7. He is even going to give us. Mobile phone so we can contact him whenever. This guy is great....

Unfortunately for us checkin time is 2 pm and here we are at 630am at the hotel with no available room to check into. So it was a case of make yourself comfortable on the reception area couch. We only had to wait until 10am and they allowed us to check in early without additional charges. As we were waiting for the elevator the concierge said to Tim and I "here for baby" wtf is it that obvious? It is really great that it is so welcomed, and it makes it a lot easier when we don't have to explain what we are doing here. Even the female immigration officer at Melbourne airport made a weird comment along the lines of "all the way to India for 9 days" with a weird eyebrow raise!!! We really feel more comfortable here in India with the surrogacy process than in our own country. It just goes to show how narrow minded or "behind" Australia can be...

Ok so the svelte suites! Fantastic.. Clean, modern, comfortable, friendly, and very well located. Highly recommend the svelte for anyone considering traveling to Delhi. Not the cheapest, but certainly not over priced. We have a royal suite that comprises kitchen, living, dining room. Then separate bedroom, bathroom and walk In robe cupboard. There is a restaurant here and room service. And all very conveniently located above what we call delhi's "chadstone shopping centre" (for those from melbourne)

So for today we are catching up on sleep, and just searching our way around the shopping centre. It is 7pm on Friday night and from our room we can see the buzz of south Delhi's upper class party district coming to life and it is nice to just watch it all from a distance.

Anyhow I'm getting RSI in the thumbs from all this typing using the iPad and the on screen keyboard. Never imagined I would ever travel to India but I am so happy to be here and so far so good. I think I will really like this wonderful place.

Xoxox

Chris and Tim