Out of India

We arrived back in Auckland a few days ago and are currently holed up in one of the NZ government Managed Isolation facilities. Thankfully the NZ government provides quite a good quality of facility as a key part of encouraging compliance, and we feel like we’re enjoying two weeks of much needed staycation after the previous couple of weeks of… umm… adventures in India.

We’d booked our domestic flight and Delhi airport hotel for a day before our Air India flight to Auckland. This turned out to be a good move, as our domestic flight was pushed back three hours, which would have made the connection pretty tight if we’d flown the same day as our international flight. We raised the bar on our usual $20 per night hotel budget and settled into the Aloft hotel about ten minutes from the airport. During our stay we ventured out only briefly in search of a replacement laptop charger, but otherwise spent our time in the hotel room – we didn’t want to pick up the ‘rona at this stage, which would have prevented us boarding. We joked that ordering room service for all three meals was good preparation for our upcoming NZ Managed Isolation, where indeed, food is delivered to our door three times per day.

It was interesting seeing the differences in Delhi handling the covid outbreak from Kochi. Delhi has been hit quite hard, but in many respects it was much looser to move around than in Kochi. That said, given that there are 19 million Delhiites, and an incredible further 205 million in the state Uttar Pradesh state that almost surrounds the capital, so I guess they’re used to not spacing out too much.

The ubers (and their drivers!) display a much lower level of cleanliness and sanitation than their Kochi counterparts, and we kept both masks and visors on en route to and from the airport hotel along with constant hand sanitizing.

Shortly after we arrived at our hotel room we received a call from the NZ High Commission (embassy) checking Helen’s passport and visa details. We tried to not let our imaginations go into overdrive that there could be a problem with her visa to enter NZ, and, thankfully, no further calls came. However, relaxing was further made difficult by a well-meaning and well-intentioned friend sending us a screen shot of a flight tracker app stating that our flight had been ‘cancelled’ just hours before we were due to leave for the airport. The following hours weren’t so relaxing, as we checked various website and social media platforms to corroborate this. It was a struggle to try and get our heads around a possible return to Kochi and yet further weeks or months in the marina and we were determined not to let our imagination run away with us.

Finding none and not being officially advised otherwise, we returned to the airport in an even less hygienic uber than the previous day, to join a series of three hours’ worth of queues to get us through the airport. I’ve been through a few ratty airports in my time and to say it was a sense of relief to be finally seated next to each other, not least given that original seat allocation was on opposite sides of a packed plane, would be an understatement! What a relief to be on our way home!

The lack of inflight service (we each had a bag of sandwiches and snacks waiting on our seats), entertainment, and the ability to move freely around was taken with a ‘grin and bear it’ attitude by the passengers, us included, with everyone just wanting to get home. The hosties were wrapped up from head to toe, I found myself wondering if cartoon characters were striding up and down the plane aisles.

Being ‘processed’ on arrival at Auckland airport felt just like that – in a well-practiced and professional, but still warm way. Health, immigration, bio-security and customs all felt fairly challenging – I realised later that having worn our masks and visors for many hours by this point, didn’t help at all – feeling increasingly hot and bothered and claustrophobic. Exiting the secure part of the airport into the arrivals area felt a little depressing – of course looking and feeling vastly different from our previous visit on holiday last year. We looked over at the car rental counters and dreamed of Europcar making us queue for 45 mintues, as they did last year. The final stage before exiting the terminal to the hotel transfer bus was the Managed Isolation allocation. This desk was staffed by two smiling ladies and as they handed us our allocation, I welled up with emotion at their sincere smiles and “welcome home”.

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