From Denver to London (oops- scratch that) to Delhi (no....) to Colorado Springs to Denver (again) to Los Angeles to Tokyo to Singapore to Dhaka
Well, it has been while and we haven’t updated - but that certainly isn’t because nothing was happening. Where to start? Let’s begin on Tuesday, August 18 – the day we were supposed to leave. Actually, let’s start a little earlier. In JUNE, we bought our tickets at a travel agency in Braintree before we left for Colorado. She booked us on a British Airways flight to Delhi and a separate ticket on Jet airways from Delhi to Dhaka. At the time, I (Sam) wasn’t crazy about this having 2 separate tickets, but she assured us that all we’d need to do is recheck our bags in Delhi. I asked her if this would be a problem since we weren’t getting an Indian visa, and she said, no because we’d only be transiting in the airport. Foolishly, we believed her.
We arrived at Denver International Airport at about 5pm to catch our overnight flight to London. At the check-in, I asked if they could check our bags all the way through to Dhaka, even though we had a separate ticket. They said no. Then the subject of our Indian visa came up. It turns out, they say, that because of how she booked our tickets, we do actually need an Indian visa. In fact, British Airways wont even let us on the plane without a visa. They can’t (won’t, really) re-route us because since our tickets were purchased through a travel agent, they can’t (won’t, really) change the tickets. The travel agency is closed at this point and an hour or so later, we end up calling Sam’s mom to come get us from the airport. It was incredibly frustrating to have all this buildup and goodbyes, only to turn around and go back where we started.
Well, it has been while and we haven’t updated - but that certainly isn’t because nothing was happening. Where to start? Let’s begin on Tuesday, August 18 – the day we were supposed to leave. Actually, let’s start a little earlier. In JUNE, we bought our tickets at a travel agency in Braintree before we left for Colorado. She booked us on a British Airways flight to Delhi and a separate ticket on Jet airways from Delhi to Dhaka. At the time, I (Sam) wasn’t crazy about this having 2 separate tickets, but she assured us that all we’d need to do is recheck our bags in Delhi. I asked her if this would be a problem since we weren’t getting an Indian visa, and she said, no because we’d only be transiting in the airport. Foolishly, we believed her.
We arrived at Denver International Airport at about 5pm to catch our overnight flight to London. At the check-in, I asked if they could check our bags all the way through to Dhaka, even though we had a separate ticket. They said no. Then the subject of our Indian visa came up. It turns out, they say, that because of how she booked our tickets, we do actually need an Indian visa. In fact, British Airways wont even let us on the plane without a visa. They can’t (won’t, really) re-route us because since our tickets were purchased through a travel agent, they can’t (won’t, really) change the tickets. The travel agency is closed at this point and an hour or so later, we end up calling Sam’s mom to come get us from the airport. It was incredibly frustrating to have all this buildup and goodbyes, only to turn around and go back where we started.
PHOTO: Atticus waiting to be picked up from DIAAfter three days of waiting for the travel agency to try and get British Airways to re-route us, the agency had to accept that B.A. wasn’t going to do anything. As a result, they had to buy us new tickets. These tickets were not as good- with a crazy long flight and a 18 hour layover in Singapore. They left on Sunday, August 25. At that point though, we just wanted to go, so we didn’t put up a fight. We may re-visit this with them later, since they want our help getting money from British Airways.
After looking online though, we decided that maybe the layover wasn’t so bad, and we’d take the opportunity to see Singapore. Things didn’t go exactly as planned.
We won't have a great internet connection for the next day or so, but we'll try to get the blog posts caught up to where we are (dhaka) as soon as possible! Next entry: Changi Airport!
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