Getting to India

So, getting to India has been full obstacles. My trip began quite smoothly, my flight left on time. When I arrived in London-Heathrow there was a snow storm that had delayed many planes by over 3 hrs, so when my plane arrived on time, we first had to circle in the air for over 30 min to be allowed to land. Once we landed, there were no places for my plane to dock, so we stayed on the run way. My layover was only 2 hrs, which at first was amazing because I hate layovers, but by the time my plane was allowed to dock, I only had 10 min to get across the entire Terminal 4 of Heathrow. Needless to say, I ran. I thankfully made it, but my luggage did not. When we arrived at the Chennai airport, we had to wait for over an hour and a half before they would accept that my luggage was not coming. After filling out paper work, we finally left the airport and entered India. I had been warned about India. People have told me many times that I will be shocked by what I see, but I honestly was not. As we drove through the streets of Chennai, it was amazing to see the similarities to the US but the vast differences. Drivers do not stay in their own lane, they take over however much of the road they want and all the other drivers are doing this at the same time. We thought we were going to crash at least 20 times. Motorcycles, bicycles, autorickshaws, buses, and pedestrians are all fighting for the road, but some how there seems to be some stability to the chaos. The people have been incredibly friendly, even though we know we have been taken advantage of because we are tourists, but we laugh about it. The drive from Vellore was bittersweet. I was so excited to finally get to Vellore, but I was flustered that I still did not have my luggage.