Saturday, November 26, 2005

Last Day in Delhi

My last day in Delhi was not too bad. The morning was spent rushing between the Exit Permit office and Singapore Airlines to get the necessary documents. It was really quite frustrating, but to cut a long story short (coz I think I've said enough about this) I finally got everything in place and SQ also confirmed my seat for my flight back to Singapore last night.

For the rest of the afternoon, I booked myself on a half-day tour of Old Delhi. The tour was ok. I've got some pics which I've already uploaded to my album. Red Fort (or Lal Quila) was impressive. I won't talk much about the history of it. If you want to read about it, click here. I find that it is such a waste that all these historical monuments are left to deteriorate. The buildings were just a shade of their former splendour. While the main architecture is still there, the intricacies like the carvings, the inlaid jewels, etc, are all either gone or in the process of being destroyed. The guide told us about the magnificient Peacock Throne which once belonged in one of the buildings. Through time, the throne was looted and moved by invaders. Now, parts of the throne are in Tehran while the larget diamond on the throne, the Kohinoor, is now found on the crown of England's Queen mother. It's such a pity.

In the evening, I made my way to the airport for my overnight flight back to Singapore. There weren't much hiccups at immigration (thankfully!). The flight back was uneventful, though I couldn't sleep at all. I kinda hate overnight flights... Well, everything seemed to be ok until we landed in Singapore. We touched down at about 7.05 am and the plane came to a stop at about 7.15 am. So as usual, the passengers all started getting ready to alight. Wanna guess how long we took before we actually alighted? MORE THAN HALF AN HOUR! We just stood and waited and waited and waited. Earlier on, the pilot said something about being an unscheduled stop or something like that and that the buses were on the way to pick us up. well, the buses must have been leg paddled coz it took them another 25 mins to come! I guess I was most irritated coz (1) no one was telling us what was really happening and (2) how on earth could it take 30 mins to deploy those airport buses?! I mean, this is supposed to be Singapore Changi Airport lor, the 'best' airport in the world. Sigh. And when we finally got down to the tarmac after 30mins... the buses weren't there still! After 30 mins, they only activated two buses to do two rounds... and each round took real long coz the dropping point was really far. Sigh. It was a fitting end to my not-so-nice trip to India.

Well, back home now. Rushed out for Chicken Rice already. Char Siew is next! Unfortunately, feeling a little under the weather. Hope i dun get worse... plenty of things to do in the coming week as I have to move back home and I'm still hoping to go away on my own trip for a few days.

I really really really am glad to be home. :)

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