Off to India!

And I’m off!

Today I’m leaving my cozy home to travel halfway around the world to India. It wasn’t my idea. My boss told me I had to! Up until now, as I sit here in the Emirates business-class lounge, I’ve been vacillating between feelings of uplifting curiosity to down-right discomfort when I think about the journey. I’ve never traveled this far before, and although I work with many people from the culture, it’s one thing to have a meeting in my day-to-day office  versus flying almost 20 hours to a continent, country and company that is totally foreign to me.

But as I said, up to now my feelings have been swinging to and fro. Now I’m here, at the lounge, with the huge nose of a Boeing 777 just on the other side of the long row of windows I keep staring out. Not much I can do about it now (yes, I had entertained the notion of somehow putting the trip off entirely).

Since my path is set, I figure I’d make the most of it by blogging my adventure. And so, chapter one begins with kissing my beautiful wife good-bye, climbing into a Lincoln town car (thanks, Emirates!), and in a short time, boarding that triple-7 for the first leg of my adventure.

My first stop will be Dubai, for a layover which will last 6 hours. I hear the lounge is very good, so I’m hoping time will pass pleasantly. Besides, I’ve been given an assignment from my wife to thoroughly scope out the Duty Free shop. Between these two activities, and perhaps wandering about the airport, I’m thinking I’ll be able to shake off the 16 hours it’ll take us to fly there.

After the break, we board another plane for the 3.5 hour flight over to Hyderabad, my first ‘port of call’. Since the flight from SFO was delayed 3 hours due to fog, we’ll end up landing there early in the morning on Monday (it’s still Saturday here in San Francisco). I was initially slated to land at 3am, collect my bag and dash off to the hotel for a few scant hours of sleep before showing up at ‘work’. Now it appears I’ll just have enough time to shower, drop off my clothes and grab a taxi to the office! I really do hope I sleep on the plane.

So there you have it. The journey commences! Come along and experience the sights!