lost mountain wave: India Delhi Airport

Whatever you do or think of doing in life, try to avoid changing airlines and transferring bags at Delhi airport, never go there if possible. You will leave the well ordered universe of, say KLM Dutch airlines and be dropped into India's version of Kafka, arriving just after midnight, after flying for 8 hours, not knowing what time it really is for your body. I have been here before, to the purgatory of being attached for some reason to two bags of climbing equipment being held hostage by a large committee of young Indian airline officials. First someone explains that you will need to wait for maybe 15 minutes while they find the bags and he disappears. An hour later someone new goes through the entire process again, checking the passport, the baggage claim numbers, the ticket...just wait over there for a few minutes, then disappears. I rant at the counter, gesticulate, demand, implore, lay down on the floor, until someone else, looking very concerned, takes down all the information and says, just wait for 15 minutes....but I can't wait, I am tired, it is 2 AM, you have my bags with my gloves and boots and tent.

A new person makes another promise, we have found the bags...then disappears. At 4 AM they ask how much the bags weigh...15 kilos...each exchange creates a long conversation in Hindi among everyone, there are 11 to 16 people there at any given time for "transfers". I get the impression I am the first person who ever attempted such a thing and they really have no idea what to do. At 5 AM someone says, a new person, that I have to pay for extra weight...$55.00, I knew this was going to happen, just find my bags....He takes my $60.00 and disappears, it is 5 AM. Later someone else appears and says, $47.00, but has no idea where the $60.00 went....This is the short version, I know that just beyond the doors there is a lovely airline terminal. When they finally come up with a boarding pass 6 hours after landing, I feel permanently bonded to these people, like a prisoner to their captors. Who knows if the bags will ever end up in Kathmandu.

Don't ever go here