Thursday, January 11, 11:00 PM-Sunday, January 13, 6:00 AM
Bangalore is a very long way away from New York City. Our party of 5 consists of a Green energy building supply business owner and her son a college student, the owner of an architectural firm, an attorney, and a gentleman that owns a real estate development firm. We left on British Airways for London and arrived in record time, partly because of a ferocious tail wind that made the flight bumpy.
We would have left London on time had not our plane been hit by a food service truck and peeled off some of the plane’s outer skin. The pilot personally walked through the plane reassuring everyone that this was not going to stop us from going to Bangalore, and that it could be repaired. The customer service was excellent on BA and after two hours delay we left for Bangalore.
Someone in the design department at BA is exceptionally gifted in mathematics. I would not have guessed that 100 people could be seated in a space 40 feet by 30 feet. But they did it by cleverly wedging one seat under the frame of the seat in front. Thus cupping the passengers like stacked spoons. You had to be a contortionist to slide in or out of your seat. This is probably why no one flies dressed up anymore because trying to do this in a skirt would be catastrophically revealing. We sat 10 abreast in coach class. However, to fly from NYC to Bangalore and back for $1,290 to me, is a bargain. Although the seats are small (I am 5 foot 9 inches tall) they are designed in such a way that you can sit in them for a long time.
After 9 hours we finally arrived at the Bangalore airport, and were getting ready to land, when the pilot abruptly pulled up sharply and gunned the engines. He regretfully informed us that there was too much fog to land in Bangalore, so we were going to go to Hyderabad. We landed in Hyderabad, refueled and waited for the fog to lift. In about two hours we resumed our trip.
We arrived in Bangalore somewhat the worse for wear, and were met by a patient delegation of Rotary executives, given a hot cup of coffee and driven to meet our gracious hosts. I am staying with Mohan Gurjars the president of the Bangalore Rotary. He owns a factory that makes generators (a good guy to know given how often our power goes out…). His lovely wife is the head of HR for a multinational firm. Rest and relaxation, a sumptuous dinner and we were sound asleep by 10 PM.
