India Day 1 Toto we're not in Chicago anymore... (Sept 4th, 5th and 6th, 2011)

Depart Terminal 5 at Chicago O'Hare Sunday the 4th











Fifteen hour direct flight from Chicago O'Hare to New Delhi on Air India, check.
Nice individual display (my sound did not work) so luckily there was no one between me and Pankaj (gentleman who sat next to me-Director of Sales and Marketing for TENNECO) and I could watch movies on the monitor next to my seat. We arrived over an hour early to beat a thunderstorm so that we did not have to circle for two hours...NICE!

The food was good and we had a choice of vegetarian curry or non-vegetarian (chicken curry). When I asked for wine, they gave me 2 bottles and of course FREE OF CHARGE...HA! Take that stingy United Airlines and your $7 a drink! Good service and very friendly...Air India was much better than I was expecting.






Pankag told me that Air India is good on International, but not so good for domestic flights. He said the other major carrier was VERY good.









Arrived in India on Monday the 5th...Welcome to India












Insane driving experience from New Delhi Airport, to The Park Hotel, check.



This picture does not do the drive justice...I should have taken video so you could hear the constant beeping of horns whilst 5 rows of cars try to drive side by side in 3 designated lanes of traffic.






Saw cows in middle of street from airport to The Park hotel, check.













Checked into the Park Hotel, check. Nice accommodation and an awesome pool in the back with a nice bar and super friendly staff...They ended up giving me a few cocktails for free since I chatted with them for a few hours...

Felt very safe since the 1st thing the guards did was check under the front and back of car with a mirror and inspected the baggage, then went through mettle detectors with guards with machine guns next to it.



My Hotel room, very comfortable bed and clean.

Travertine floors and walls in the bathroom with nice hardwood floors in the bedroom.

Went to the night market across the street and bought a few things (2 chess sets for 1,000RP $2200-sells for 200RP each at government store and bought Rayband glasses for 1500RP or 200RP to locals)for 10 time what Indian's pay, check. The guys at my hotel were very kind and gave me tips on shopping at night markets...Do not buy anything until you  find out what is normal pricing and what is tourist pricing...

Two nice guys at the hotel pool bar...Two Kingfisher beers (tasted nice) cost 800RP ($20) and the same beer sells across the street at a shop for 60RP each ($1.25)...Lesson learned...

This is the view of the pool from the bar with the panoramic picture application on my Sony Cybershot 16.1 Mega pixels pocket camera-pretty cool...super nice and they guys told me it is the best pool bar in Delhi. It has private cabana areas for VIP quests.

 Went out for dinner in one of the hotel restaurants and talked to a waiter for my whole dinner...check. Had bottled water and one local beer Kingfisher lager beer.

I told the waiter I was not very hungry so I wanted Nan bread, some sauce to dip it in and some lamb and spicy was OK...

The waiter started me off with poppadoms and some spicy pickle side dishes.

Had a lentil tart...

 Little Nan bread with mango sauce...Sweet, but savory.

 Mutton lower leg pieces with a lovely spicy curry and garlic Nan bread. Cost 1800RP, so about $35...Expensive for India, but for a 5 start restaurant reasonable and had excellent service...also, part of the 1800 RP was almost 30% VAT tax.

The garlic Nan bread dipped in the mutton curry sauce was AWESOME.





It is now 1:41 am local time and I am wide awake, but have a 7am wake up call....YIKES! Looking forward to going down to the pool at 7:15 am for a coffee and a swim to reset my internal clock, then it is a full day New Delhi Tour. I leave from my hotel at 9:30 AM to go to the main meeting area for a 10:30 am departure.

Day 1 actually started in Chicago on September 4th, landed in Delhi 15 hours later on the 5th and finished on the evening of the 5th...