India Trip 2010 - Part 2

OK...so ready to hear about the 2nd leg of the journey from Washington Dulles to Doha and 3rd leg of journey from Doha to Ahmedabad on Qatar airways??

Qatar Airways:
Our flight was at 9:50 pm but it left little late around 10:30 pm.  Once boarding started, we got to our seats first and faster with my dad's wheelchair.  I got to say that I had expected the seats to be better and spacious compare to what we get on United Airlines flight since this was going to be a straight 12 hours flight....but I was disappointed since the seat space was very little :(.  Well, what can we do now??  Do we have a choice??  NO.  So we got situated in our little seats.

I must say that their service is pretty nice right from when you get in the airplane.  Once everyone got seated, first they brought out was basket full of candies for you to just grab some.  Then they bring out hot towels.  After a while they served the dinner which was very delicious.  We chose to have Asian Vegetarian Meal.
 
Food:
The dinner included rice, dal, mixed vegetable, moong dal chat, one bun, butter, water, one chocolate, and one gulab jamun.
The breakfast included chana, one small paratha, one small kachori, one bagel and cream cheese, fruit yogurt, and orange juice.

Entertainment:
For entertainment, they did not have very many choices for bollywood movies, but a lot of choices for hollywood movies + dramas, plus some other indian shows.  They even have video games with a controller/remote for you to play with which was fun.

Neighbors:
Now, let's talk about neighbors.  When you have a looooooong flight like the one we had, you would hope that you get good neighbors, more like quiet neighbors :P, to make your journey peaceful.  But things don't always go as you plan.  Btw, I had the window seat.  Right behind our 3 seats, we had 3 sisters sitting together who just loved to talk...too much talk.  This wasn't it.  Once the flight took off, they took off their shoes and socks, and made themselves feel like home by placing their feet on the back of my seat handle and even on the window!  Can you believe it??  I wouldn't have minded the feet on the handle BUT their feet were honestly stinking the entire row :(.  To give her little signal about her feet on my handle, I tried to cover the entire handle by placing my hand on it and started pushing her feet back with my elbow but I guess the sister was not backing down!!  Instead she pushed her feet towards my elbow to signal me to remove my hand so she can sit comfortably in her seat!!  I guess I had no option but to start the fan right above me to get rid of the smell.  Oh wait, there is more!  Every time I fell asleep, the lady behind me would torture the video screen such that it will shake the entire seat.  Now, aren't they some neighbors!

Well, that was just one side neighbors, on the other side, there was a neighbor who had a non-stop crying kid :(.  But honestly, I don't have any complains for that kid because on a long flight like this one, even I was exhausted so I can't blame the kid.  That's it for the neighbors.

Qatar airways has one good thing at every station which is that they keep small snacks and drinks if anyone wants to get up and grab something to eat.  And they have plenty of those to make sure they have enough for everyone.  I think their service was pretty good and vegetarian food was good as well.

Doha Airport:
Between watching movies, sleeping, playing few games, and then sleeping again, we got to Doha around 10:40 pm at night (Nov. 12).  Once we landed, they announced that if you have a wheelchair, stay in your seats until everyone is gone.  So all the people gets to get off the plane first and be boarded on to the bus to be taken to the terminal.  We waited for about 15-20 minutes until everyone was boarded off the plane and then they transferred the wheelchair people on to the bus.  From where we had landed, it only took like 2-3 minutes to get to the terminal.  Once we got to the airport terminal, they had separate area for wheelchair people to wait until their next flight.  If you are not on wheelchair, you can either follow the sign for "Transfer" or "Immigration" once you get to the terminal.  Basically, they take the wheelchair people prioritizing based on their boarding time.  The people who are boarding first gets taken to the gate first.  Apparently, when we landed, a lot of flights must have landed at the same time and it got really crowded, both in the security line and in the wheelchair area.

There was couple of hours before our next flight so we were just waiting in the waiting area and got some time to freshen up.  We waited for like an hour and 15 minutes before they transferred my dad's wheelchair from one waiting area to another one which was just like 2 minutes away :P.  We went through security which was pretty quick because you don't have to take off your jacket, or shoes to go through security and I even had an IPad in my handbag which I didn't have to take out.  So it moved pretty quickly.

The Doha airport is not too big with only 2 floors.  The first floor has bunch of duty-free shops with few boarding gates and the 2nd floor has alot of seating area, free wi-fi area, and the remaining boarding gates.  The airport seems clean.

At the 2nd wheelchair waiting area, we waited like 2-3 hours.  When it was close our flight time, they transferred us to the bus and then to the plane.  Throughout the transfer process, they kept checking our boarding passes until we got to the plane.

From Doha to Ahmedabad:
Again, Qatar brought us candies and hot towel as soon as we got settled in our seats.  We even got nice meal on the plane.  Apperently, there were few pessangers who were transferring from another flight which was delayed and that's why our flight to Ahmedabad was delayed by 45 minutes or so.  But at that point I didn't really care since we didn't have to make any more connections.  The staff gave us the immigration forms on the plane for each person to fill out.  And then 3 hours of journey to relax and sleep.

Next post will be telling you about the experience at the new Ahmedabad International Airport.  I had heard terrible stories of what people had experienced in terms of going through customs, baggage coming very late, and workers asking for bribe...but will be giving you the latest update on it.  So stay tuned!

Tata for now :)