It’s Monday morning in Gurgaon India and I am typing this up after having breakfast at the Le Meridian Gurgaon which is where I am staying this week. Before I get to my accommodations, let met tell you about my flight to India.
Unsurprisingly, my Air Canada flight to New Delhi was 30 minutes late leaving Toronto, and 40 minutes late arriving in New Delhi. Part of that that was due to waiting 10 minutes on the tarmac at Indira Gandhi Airport for a gate, likely because we were late. Now the flight itself wasn’t bad from an Air Canada perspective. Though I had to deal with a flight attendant who’s command of the English language wasn’t the best as passengers would ask for Coke and get Whiskey and Coke for example. At one point I swapped drinks and food with someone who got that and a chicken meal when he asked for vegetarian. That was a bit of a fail. Beyond that, besides the usual crying babies and the like that you tend to get on long haul flights, someone actually put their bare feet on the arm rest to stretch out and couldn’t understand why people might be upset at that. Seriously. It was a long 14 hours the air. At least I got to watch Spider Man Homecoming and Transformers: The Last Knight to pass the time.
It took a while to get through customs because of the volume of people. But once I actually got up to the customs agent, it was quick. So was finding my luggage thanks to the Tile Sport that I put in it. I tried to use the audio function to alert me to the location of my luggage, but I couldn’t hear it in the din of the airport. My next stop was to go get local currency in the form of Rupees. Now normally I do this before I leave Toronto. But ever since the country devalued the currency earlier this year and took notes out of circulation, they’ve been hard to come by outside of the country. Thus I took $200 USD to a currency exchange counter in the airport and got roughly 12000 Rupees in exchange. I highly recommend that you get some Rupees as cash is king, and generous tipping is expected.
From there, I went out into the arrivals area and met my driver from the Le Meridian Gurgaon where I am staying this week. I’ve stayed here before and I know that this hotel is upscale in every sense of the word. The driver took my bags, loaded me into his car, and we took the 30 minute drive to the hotel in the typical Grand Theft Auto style of driving that is typical around these parts. Strangely, it used to freak me out, but now it doesn’t bother me.
We soon arrived at the hotel where check in was quick, painless and efficient. After of course being put through a metal detector and my bags were X-rayed because security is really top of mind around here. Now I got a small room with a king sized bed, which means that you get a great room as evidenced by these pictures:
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A couple other things that I’d like to highlight:
Just like earlier this year, I had this writing on my nightstand. If anyone can translate this for me, I’d really appreciate it.
All the remote controls were hidden in this box on my nightstand which added to the upscale nature of this hotel.
I have a decent sized area to set up my tech in. You can see that I have my MacBook Pro along my Apple Watch sitting beside it getting a charge, and a cable to charge my iPhone with lots of space left over.
The only thing that was a #fail was this speaker with an Apple 30-pin connector. Hotels have to figure out that it’s 2017 and you need Bluetooth, USB-A, USB-C, or Lightning connections if you’re going to offer this sort of tech in your rooms. The room does redeem itself with better than average WiFi.
Now as for the view from my room….. Well this is what I got:
I am not concerned about the construction site, it’s the haze from the pollution that scares me. The second I landed I could smell it and it was far from appealing. I will let you know how bad it is as the week goes on.
Now I am going to wrap this up and meet my driver downstairs to start my day. I’ll have updates as the week goes on so stay tuned.
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This entry was posted on November 19, 2017 at 9:18 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags India, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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My Fourth Trip To India: Part 2
It’s Monday morning in Gurgaon India and I am typing this up after having breakfast at the Le Meridian Gurgaon which is where I am staying this week. Before I get to my accommodations, let met tell you about my flight to India.
Unsurprisingly, my Air Canada flight to New Delhi was 30 minutes late leaving Toronto, and 40 minutes late arriving in New Delhi. Part of that that was due to waiting 10 minutes on the tarmac at Indira Gandhi Airport for a gate, likely because we were late. Now the flight itself wasn’t bad from an Air Canada perspective. Though I had to deal with a flight attendant who’s command of the English language wasn’t the best as passengers would ask for Coke and get Whiskey and Coke for example. At one point I swapped drinks and food with someone who got that and a chicken meal when he asked for vegetarian. That was a bit of a fail. Beyond that, besides the usual crying babies and the like that you tend to get on long haul flights, someone actually put their bare feet on the arm rest to stretch out and couldn’t understand why people might be upset at that. Seriously. It was a long 14 hours the air. At least I got to watch Spider Man Homecoming and Transformers: The Last Knight to pass the time.
It took a while to get through customs because of the volume of people. But once I actually got up to the customs agent, it was quick. So was finding my luggage thanks to the Tile Sport that I put in it. I tried to use the audio function to alert me to the location of my luggage, but I couldn’t hear it in the din of the airport. My next stop was to go get local currency in the form of Rupees. Now normally I do this before I leave Toronto. But ever since the country devalued the currency earlier this year and took notes out of circulation, they’ve been hard to come by outside of the country. Thus I took $200 USD to a currency exchange counter in the airport and got roughly 12000 Rupees in exchange. I highly recommend that you get some Rupees as cash is king, and generous tipping is expected.
From there, I went out into the arrivals area and met my driver from the Le Meridian Gurgaon where I am staying this week. I’ve stayed here before and I know that this hotel is upscale in every sense of the word. The driver took my bags, loaded me into his car, and we took the 30 minute drive to the hotel in the typical Grand Theft Auto style of driving that is typical around these parts. Strangely, it used to freak me out, but now it doesn’t bother me.
We soon arrived at the hotel where check in was quick, painless and efficient. After of course being put through a metal detector and my bags were X-rayed because security is really top of mind around here. Now I got a small room with a king sized bed, which means that you get a great room as evidenced by these pictures:
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
A couple other things that I’d like to highlight:
Just like earlier this year, I had this writing on my nightstand. If anyone can translate this for me, I’d really appreciate it.
All the remote controls were hidden in this box on my nightstand which added to the upscale nature of this hotel.
I have a decent sized area to set up my tech in. You can see that I have my MacBook Pro along my Apple Watch sitting beside it getting a charge, and a cable to charge my iPhone with lots of space left over.
The only thing that was a #fail was this speaker with an Apple 30-pin connector. Hotels have to figure out that it’s 2017 and you need Bluetooth, USB-A, USB-C, or Lightning connections if you’re going to offer this sort of tech in your rooms. The room does redeem itself with better than average WiFi.
Now as for the view from my room….. Well this is what I got:
I am not concerned about the construction site, it’s the haze from the pollution that scares me. The second I landed I could smell it and it was far from appealing. I will let you know how bad it is as the week goes on.
Now I am going to wrap this up and meet my driver downstairs to start my day. I’ll have updates as the week goes on so stay tuned.
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This entry was posted on November 19, 2017 at 9:18 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags India, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.