Wheels Up, Wings Up, Worries Down

There’s a particular kind of stillness that settles over Granite Bay at 4 a.m. — the quiet, slightly giddy kind that comes right before a month-long trip finally begins, and also, unfortunately, the kind that invites some deeply regrettable choices. Coffee at that hour is less a beverage than a dare, and I made it twice as strong as any reasonable person should before 5 a.m., which felt like a triumph at the time and a mistake somewhere over the Pacific. Yassar was right on time, as always. He’s been our trusted driver for years now, originally from Iran, endlessly good-humored about early mornings, and the sort of person who makes small talk at that hour feel like a gift rather than an imposition.

SFO at dawn has its own charm once the coffee kicks in — or possibly that was just the double-strength coffee still doing its work. Emirates check-in was smooth, and we settled into the lounge to do what everyone does there: eat well past the point of hunger, purely on the strength of it being free, and pretend the mimosas at 6 a.m. are a completely normal breakfast choice.

Twelve hours to Dubai gave us plenty of time to sink into books, half-watch a movie or two, get reacquainted with the particular texture of recycled airplane air, and enjoy the quiet calm of being airborne with nowhere else to be. Then seven hours on the ground in Dubai — enough time for a couple of unhurried laps of the terminal and some very serious window-shopping for gold bars we did not buy.

This is the part of travel I love most: the people you meet along the way. Boarding in Dubai, we ended up next to Ranya Kadri, a New York Times reporter on her way to an assignment in Jordan, fresh off her son’s graduation at Stanford — his undergrad, delightfully, was at MIT. Ten minutes of conversation and I’d gotten a warm little glimpse into someone else’s whole life.

Sridhar had his own gem of an encounter: a soft-spoken nuclear physicist from Bombay, decades deep into work too sensitive to talk about over airplane peanuts, who’d only been able to visit the US once he’d finally retired. The kind of story you only hear because you happened to be sitting in the right seat.

From there, the last leg: Dubai to Delhi. We’d already got Easy Arrival sorted — sorted being a generous word for the adventure that involved. Round one, I typed my husband’s email wrong and ended up authorizing a credit card charge for a mystery amount. Round two, trying to fix it, I accidentally filed him a fresh visa application, despite the fact that he already travels on an OCI card and a multiple-entry visa — thorough, if nothing else. Round three: correct email, correct form, and my credit card cheerfully handed over once more for good measure. A small comedy of errors, but a comedy all the same. It was simply another chapter in the long-running sitcom that appears to follow us wherever we go.

That’s departure day — three flights’ worth of geography compressed into one very long, very good Wednesday. Next stop: Delhi, and the actual trip begins.

Landing, and Immediately Getting Distracted

Blacklane was waiting at arrivals — always a reassuring sight. Two Mercedes showed up instead of one, since our luggage haul apparently outgrew whatever SUV they had on hand, and we rolled up to Le Méridien in a small, slightly excessive motorcade.

On the way to the hotel, we were charmed by the sheer number of monkeys frolicking along the roadside. Dozens of them tumbled through hedges, bounded across flowerbeds, and perched on walls with the confidence of long-time residents. We had prepared ourselves for stories of protests and political unrest. Instead, we were treated to an abundance of monkey business—far more delightful, and considerably less stressful, than anything we had expected. Delhi had plenty of its own energy that day, with protests circling Rashtrapati Bhavan and Jantar Mantar — a reminder, right on arrival, that this city is always alive with something.

First order of business, before even unpacking: Amazon.In Prime, to round up the cold-weather gear I’d somehow left off my packing list for Pangong — evidence, if any was needed, that I can plan a month across four cities and still forget that Pangong sits at 14,000 feet.. There’s something satisfying about problem-solving from a hotel room forty minutes after landing.

Then, undeterred by the crowds, we set off to find an ICICI branch — happily sidetracked along the way by a FabIndia storefront and Adyar Ananda Bhavan.

Happy hour at Le Méridien brought its own charm: old grape juice cheerfully labeled Cabernet Sauvignon, and for this vegan girl, a simple plate of steamed baby corn, sliced cucumber, and green chutney. And the real highlight — meeting a strikingly handsome Jat at the bar, who was thoroughly scandalized that I’d never heard of Jats before. A warrior clan, he informed me, with some pride. So what was he doing pouring wine at Le Méridien instead of defending the country? His answer, delivered without missing a beat: “Sometimes hospitality is like a battle every day, madam.” I liked him immediately.

Unpacking, then Surrendering

By the time we made it back upstairs, the Amazon delivery had beaten us to the room — thermals, gloves, the whole cold-weather arsenal for Pangong, neatly stacked and waiting. I tore into the boxes with the enthusiasm of someone who’d forgotten how to pack, then made a valiant, only partially successful attempt to talk my body into believing it was nighttime. Jet lag had other plans, as it always does on day one, but somewhere between unpacking fleece layers and losing the argument with my own circadian rhythm, sleep won out. A good day, filed away, with Delhi properly begun.

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