Last night I didn't get much sleep due to the extreme rocking of the train (by far the worst track we have encountered) and the extremely snoring individual across the aisle - he was more noisy than a revving auto-rickshaw!
We arrived in Delhi at 5:45, only ten minutes late, which was pretty good. So we negotiated our way outside and found a small cab-van driven by two kids that didn't look one day older than 16 - but they drove alright and heeded our request not to play their local Indian pop music too loudly at 6:00 in the morning!
We arrived at the LaLIT hotel at 6:15 and had already decided to do an early check-in (costing half a day's rate) only to find that despite our previous emails they didn't have a room with our specifications available for us just yet - they could only offer a "suitable" smoking room at the time so we decided to wait as they indicated it would be no more than half an hour before they would be ready for us. Nearly two hours later and a few back-and-forths from both camps to check/convey status they finally got us a room - but due to the wait they waved the normal fee and still offered us breakfast as an apology - not bad!
So the next time we wish to book a luxury hotel we will do a similar ploy of listing a heap of specifications and wanting to check-in early - seems that there is some money to save ;-)
After showering/freshing up we went down to a huge breakfast buffet - it was ginormous and consisted of nearly everything you could wish for (except pork sausages - chicken sausages being the substitute) - and there was plenty of it and no rush for the buffet stands to get food unlike e.g. the Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai.
Then we rested for a couple of hours before I went down to the gym and ran for an hour, showered and relaxed with a newspaper in their special spa relaxation section - great stuff ;-)
For the rest of the day we didn't do much - I did receive a couple of phone calls from employment agencies in Ireland - and even arranged an interview.
At around 17:00 I also skipped out for food (Claire's stomach still not entirely great and she didn't feel hungry), which was a trip to PizzaHut only 750m away - I also brought home a small pizza for Claire for later - and in the reception area of the hotel they had a bakery and I bought a gigantic chocolate donut for both of us to share.
The rest of the evening we watched telly and relaxed.
It was interesting that it had just rained quite heavily when we arrived in New Delhi - and when we checked the news it also turned out that they had had lots of winds at up to 100km/hour, which knocked down trees etc. Also, during the day we only felt temperatures at late 20C's, which felt quite cool for India!
I am starting to wonder whether updating LinkedIn status and replying to head hunters has been such a brilliant idea over the past week. I have so far gotten two phone calls from agencies - and one interview is already bagged for Friday - but while I'm still in India. It's really great to feel wanted out on the current job market, in particular in Ireland, but maybe the timing was a bit off as this undoubtedly will cost me some time and anxiety while still being away. Ah well, it's done now, no point in whingeing ;-)
We arrived in Delhi at 5:45, only ten minutes late, which was pretty good. So we negotiated our way outside and found a small cab-van driven by two kids that didn't look one day older than 16 - but they drove alright and heeded our request not to play their local Indian pop music too loudly at 6:00 in the morning!
We arrived at the LaLIT hotel at 6:15 and had already decided to do an early check-in (costing half a day's rate) only to find that despite our previous emails they didn't have a room with our specifications available for us just yet - they could only offer a "suitable" smoking room at the time so we decided to wait as they indicated it would be no more than half an hour before they would be ready for us. Nearly two hours later and a few back-and-forths from both camps to check/convey status they finally got us a room - but due to the wait they waved the normal fee and still offered us breakfast as an apology - not bad!
So the next time we wish to book a luxury hotel we will do a similar ploy of listing a heap of specifications and wanting to check-in early - seems that there is some money to save ;-)
After showering/freshing up we went down to a huge breakfast buffet - it was ginormous and consisted of nearly everything you could wish for (except pork sausages - chicken sausages being the substitute) - and there was plenty of it and no rush for the buffet stands to get food unlike e.g. the Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai.
Then we rested for a couple of hours before I went down to the gym and ran for an hour, showered and relaxed with a newspaper in their special spa relaxation section - great stuff ;-)
For the rest of the day we didn't do much - I did receive a couple of phone calls from employment agencies in Ireland - and even arranged an interview.
At around 17:00 I also skipped out for food (Claire's stomach still not entirely great and she didn't feel hungry), which was a trip to PizzaHut only 750m away - I also brought home a small pizza for Claire for later - and in the reception area of the hotel they had a bakery and I bought a gigantic chocolate donut for both of us to share.
The rest of the evening we watched telly and relaxed.
It was interesting that it had just rained quite heavily when we arrived in New Delhi - and when we checked the news it also turned out that they had had lots of winds at up to 100km/hour, which knocked down trees etc. Also, during the day we only felt temperatures at late 20C's, which felt quite cool for India!
I am starting to wonder whether updating LinkedIn status and replying to head hunters has been such a brilliant idea over the past week. I have so far gotten two phone calls from agencies - and one interview is already bagged for Friday - but while I'm still in India. It's really great to feel wanted out on the current job market, in particular in Ireland, but maybe the timing was a bit off as this undoubtedly will cost me some time and anxiety while still being away. Ah well, it's done now, no point in whingeing ;-)
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