Days 1-3 (5th to 7th July) London to Delhi

Having spent two nice days in London, we got up at 05.30 on Sunday 5th July to catch the 10.05 plane to Delhi via Sharjah and walked to Tower Hill tube station. We got there by 06,00 and found it closed because it was Sunday. This might be excruciatingly boring, but I’m recounting it because it could be of useful assistance to our children/grandchildren/friends who might want to make the same trip in the future. Anyway, we asked a young girl at a bus stop about buses and were advised to take a No.15 from Tower Hill to Charing Cross and then a No.26 to Victoria rail station. The Gatwick Express leaves every 30 minutes and takes about 30 minutes to get to Gatwick.
That’s when the fun (or horror story) began. The bus stopped at South Terminal and we were told that planes to distant places like Sharjah leave from North Terminal, so we had to get a shuttle which leaves every few minutes. Having checked in on-line, we tried to get through the gate and couldn’t because (as the friendly lady at the gate pointed out) the plane wasn’t leaving until 19.35. So we had a breakfast at Sussex House, an upscale eatery by Gatwick standards, and had a mediocre meal at great expense. We eventually found the Arabia Air check-in desk and met other people who had been wandering about for hours because Flight Network had misinformed them about the time of the flight. We also discovered that we would be spending 6 hours at Sharjah instead of 2 as per the original schedule.
While waiting for the plane, we got a free paper and I read about the death of my friend Humpers (aka Humphrey Smith), owner of Sam Smiths Brewery and most of Tadcaster where I had been a District Councillor. He was an eccentric who didn’t allow music, games machines, loud voices, mobile phones and swearing in his 500 pubs, which is why half of them are closed. His obituary mentioned an incident when he visited one of his pubs, heard a drinker swearing and closed it the next day. As I remember, he asked the barman “Does that fellow often swear?” He was told “What, him? All the f…ing time mate”. The pub was closed on the spot and the drinkers told to sup up and get out.
The journey to Sharjah was uneventful. You have to buy a meal from a reasonable menu at a reasonable price, but the food, as on most airlines, was bland,
At Sharjah we had to go through security to get the transfer to Delhi and Jennifer got arrested. A very unpleasant girl confiscated her nail scissors which have blunt ends and can in no way be considered dangerous. She has had them for years and have passed through securities in Turkey, Russia, Kazakhstan, China, Iraq and many other countries with no problem. So she said to me “That’s stupid” and the horrible girl (who was also a policewoman) assumed she was calling her stupid, took her passport and called a supervisor who didn’t seem interested and we were stuck there for some time until a somewhat charming policeman came and gave the passport back.
When we got to Delhi, Mr Mukush had been waiting for 12 hours because he had looked on the internet and seen the schedule for the flight starting at 10.05!!! He had bought Jennifer some flowers but they had wilted and died while he was waiting.
Getting through Passport Control was a nightmare. We now have to fill in the Entry Permit on-line using a QR code on the wall which was surrounded by a large group of Chinese men who were struggling to do it. The official who had advised us went away and we panicked because he still had Jennifer’s passport. Eventually he came back, said “You have been here a long time”, and filled the form in for us. A typical example of the kindness we have enjoyed all the time in India. Mukesh drove us to the very pleasant hotel Almondz Hotel in the Patel Nagar district of Delhi where we spent two nights recovering from the ordeal of the journey. See less

The view from our room at the Tower Hotel in London

Tower Bridge

Carving on the wall of the restaurant at the Tower of London

Gun outside the White Tower

The White Tower, a Beefeater and tourists

Memorial to participants in the Black Watch Mutiny, executed on Tower Green in 1743. This is the spot where Anne Boleyn was beheaded back in the good old days.