Internet access has been less prolific and less air conditioned than I’d hoped, so far, so this will be in blurb form. I’ll do my best to update my location in identi.ca as frequently as possible, though.
My hotel in London was ideally located for the O2 arena and not much else–about 10 minutes’ walk from the nearest tube stop. Somehow, it never rained while I was on that walk. Other than a couple cloudbursts, I managed to time the rain well.
I enjoyed the normal museums but also got to see my first West End show courtesy of the Ms: Arcadia. Enjoyable–I’m told not as funny as some productions, but I didn’t mind seeing it played straight (and playing into my mental biases about England).
I was saved from a middle seat and about a half hour of checkin line at LHR on my way to Dubai, ending up in Exit Class thanks to dumb luck. Emirates’s In-Flight Entertainment is, like Cathay’s, sensational. I probably don’t need to bother mentioning how backward United’s was on a 767.
Caught Frost/Nixon on the flight to Dubai, finally.
Dubai airport is awfully lively at 4 a.m.
Delhi is 9:30 ahead of EDT. No SIM card yet — if I’m going to be ripped off I might as well wait for Rajasthan (I’ll be there longer, and by waiting I’ll avoid roaming charges).
So far in Delhi, I’ve been coping about as well as I expected with touts (not flipping out… yet), about as well as I expected with the heat (dripping, all day), and much worse than I expected with travel agents. I’ve been a bad bargainer and walked out pretty frequently. I really need a hotel-based agent (so I know the transport will show up) I can trust (not trying to shoehorn me into an all-inclusive minivan tour by inflating prices for everything else).
After working on my jetlag, today I’ve managed to see the Red Fort and Jama Masjid (both near my hotel). Tomorrow I’ll probably try for some museums before an overpriced departure for Agra on Monday morning.
Hopefully I can get a lot of sight-seeing done early tomorrow — with no noon day gun to reprimand me, I was suffering the heat with all the mad dogs and Englishmen in Delhi.
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