The 28-Hour Journey to Bangalore

Over the next six days I plan on writing about my experiences here in Bangalore, India. I don't plan on writing a lot. Given the days events I'll probably just include photos, video, and maybe a special guest author or video appearance or two. I'm doing this primarily to let my colleagues back at Pindar get a feel for what it's like to visit this country.

Today's post is about my 28-hour long journey from Philadelphia to Bangalore. I traveled with with Frank Monzo, Director, IT Services at Pindar. Its his first time here too.

We departed Philadelphia at approximately 8pm (Saturday). Despite a two hour start-up delay our flight was pleasant. Sadly, the food wasn't. I tried to sleep but I was too excited. When all is said and done I probably got two hours of shut eye.

We landed in London at 7:42pm (Sunday). I sent the following text message to my family: "It's 7:42am and the Daddy has landed in London." Given that Frank and I had 6 hours between flights we decided to get adventurous and we took the tube to Piccadilly Circus for a bite to eat. It took about 50 minutes from the airport to Piccadilly so it gave us about an hour and half to eat and look around. Unfortunately, our trip was dampened by a rain and we rain back to the underground.

It has always been a dream to go to London. The memory of the hour and half I spent there will be something I'll never forget.

We made it back to Heathrow Airport in plenty of time to make our next flight out to Bangalore. This flight is a 9 plus hour long journey. Like with the first flight I did not sleep well. All in all I slept about 4 hours. This flight seemed shorter than the first flight.

We landed in Bangalore at 4:42am (Monday morning). Unlike Heathrow -- the customs process was extremely quick. Frank and I were in and out in no time. Now, many people at Pindar spoke to us about what it was going to be like when we physically leave the airport. Someone told me, "think of the busiest street you ever saw in New York City and times that by ten. That's what its like when you leave the airport." Well, our reception was not that large -- but it was impressive. (See video below photos.)

Its now the end of one of the longest days of my life. I gotta get some sleep now because I have to be in the office.

Click on the image to enlarge.