Delhi to Heathrow, London – A first timer’s experience

I haven’t been writing for a while now, my fault completely. Actually I have been preparing for my travel to Arkansas.

Yes, guys you read it right. So here I am just going to write about my experience of the whole journey, it is going to be in three parts.

My flight to Heathrow was at around 12:20 pm which for some reason got delayed by ten more minutes.

Let me start from the beginning. I am not going to tell you regarding my bathroom habits,No. We had called a cab earlier just to be in time , so by 9:20 am I was there standing with my papa in Indira Gandhi International Airport Terminal 3, laden with 3 heavy bags we were moving towards the gate. Mind you I got an approval of two 23kg check ins and a 10kg hand luggage. And like any other first timer I filled all of them to the brim. Once in the queue towards the Gate , I was pretty nervous . Lots of incidents related to passengers being not allowed to board were hovering over my head. Fortunately nothing happened and I got to check in. Though once in the immigration queue I got a look over by the officer who checked my I-20 and gave me a pass.

Source- ndtv.com

Now, I just had to wait in the duty free area and my stomach was growling loud enough for a nearby passenger to turn his head. I wasn’t carrying a huge cash with me, so all I could do was look out for subway. I love their wraps besides they come in cheap. After food business got settled I moved towards the boarding where we had to wait for like 15 minutes before boarding.

As a child my ears had the tendency to ache in an insomniac way during flight hours. So me travelling via air wasn’t taken lightly by my father. He was too worried , really tensed, to the extant of waiting in the airport until the flight took off. Besides it was the first time his only daughter was travelling international with previous experience.

Source- self

Once seated I noticed that my co-passenger is a Spanish girl. I really enjoyed my flight journey with her. We exchanged lots of anecdotes and stories. It was wonderful, I didn’t want the flight to end. The main reason was something else though. My flight landed there at around 5:35 pm , but the next flight would be next day at 12:50 pm. So I would have to stay in the airport, as I was travelling without a transit VISA.

The immigration queue in Heathrow was a huge one as all international passengers were lined up together. God, I already missed India. When my turn finally came to face the officer, he stared at my face and asked about my next flight . I told him it would be next day. He then granted me a One day transit VISA and told me to immediately book a hotel room. I was naturally overjoyed. Ah! what plans I would have designed had I known it could be possible, probably travel towards London. But it was not to be. I was tired , had to get a new sim from the airport only with 20 pounds.

By the time I was able to get into the hotel it was 9:20pm approximately and I couldn’t fall asleep until mid night. My biological sleeping clock had been disturbed and it was just the beginning dear friends. If calculated in Indian time , I was awake from 6:30 am to 3am the next day without any wink of sleep. Yet I was there in Hounslow and the hotel room had a beautiful view. I could stand there for hours watching the double Decker buses pass by and the wonderful English houses had it not been for my tired eyes.

Source: A bit of drizzle there in Heathrow

P.S.- The most difficult thing during this part of the journey was to carry an almost 9.5kg ruck sack on my back. I am only 5 feet weighing less 49kgs. It made me loony bins at times ,lol.

I apologize to all of my readers, for not posting it earlier and I know that the content could be made brighter using pictures. But the ones I have can hardly be recognized ,with a phone as bad as that it was not easy.