The monsoon arrived in Bangalore, and we left five minutes later. Or, at least, so it seemed as we struggled to load all our baggage into the taxi during a torrential downpour. It was a bittersweet ending; we are sad to leave India, though excited to begin the next leg of our travels. Read on…
We were almost not allowed to leave India. When we checked in for our flight, the agent asked to see our Foreigner Registration certificates. Thank goodness I brought these papers – you may recall how difficult it was to get them. They were satisfied by my certificate and Pam’s, but we had none for the children. They took me to see the head Immigrations officer, a serious fellow who looked like he enjoyed the power to keep people out (or in?) India. I explained that the FRO officer had said that Bangalore does not issue certificates to children; it only stamps their passport. (You’d think he would encounter this situation every week.) I showed him the passports. He puzzled over them and appeared to consider how much he might be able to extract from me. I stood my ground. He wobbled his head and we were off to Australia via Singapore.
After an overnight flight we stopped for three hours in the fabulous Singapore airport. The boys didn’t sleep on the plane, they were so busy playing games on the in-seat entertainment system. Still, I’m always amazed at how kids can sleep pretty much anywhere, like Andy in the Singapore airport:
This post was transferred from MobileMe to WordPress in 2020, with an effort to retain the content as close to the original as possible; I recognize that some comments may now seem dated or some links may now be broken.
David Kotz 