Flying...

Today we left Udaipur in the very early hours (got up around 4:45), to get to the airport. We woke again to the sound of people bathing in the ghats, cleaning their clothes, and the peigons on the window sill.

It was a very beautiful drive early in the morning through the streets of Udaipur, as the sun was coming up. There we said goodbye to our driver for the pask week Ajit, and entered the airport as what could best described as a tin shed. Okay it did have some bricks.

The processes in airports all over the world are different, and India is no exception. First you have you luggage scanned, then you get it back with a sealed sticker. You proceed to the counter to check in, where one person speaks to you, another, puts the tags on your bag while another lifts them off the scales. Cheap employment, is all I can describe it as. Then we sat in the waiting area (which is open to the public), that has one restaurant (laminex tables), a take away booth, a shopm and a bookstore. I was too tired to explore any of these, given it was 6:30am!

When our flight was called we lined up for a long time, our ticket was checked and stamped by one person, then the males and females are separated where "frisking of all passengers" occurs. We got to another waiting area, then our ticket and hand luggage was checked and stamped again, then the bag was checked again. Yes, ok of the contents of your hand luggage is checked a number of times, it was then riffled through (comments by American behind us on the plane "oh they went through my bags so many times I don't know where anything is... now don't let people fluster you take your time"), not once but three times.

I'll finish this later....