Heylo!! fellow bloggers and my dear non-existent fan followers....it's been one huge break from the art of blogging. Not because I had lost interest, but was extremely busy in keeping my self busy in India. Boy!! The amount of traveling done this time around in Kerala and in particular the experience on road in Kochi, is beyond imagination. There sure are lots of travel stories to update on from my visits this time around.
And i will start off from the very beginning...
13th August 2008
Jet Airways flight from Houston lands in Mumbai at 11:30pm in the night. Nearly 4 hours of waiting time before i catch my connecting flight. So here I am, sitting on a ‘comfy’ chair provided by the Airport Authorities of India, in a revamped Mumbai domestic airport and thereby suggesting a promised 'international look'. The overall journey has been satisfactory, courtesy of jet airways promise to provide a world class hospitality and service. But they sure did give me the scare by mentioning that my baggage has not reached! All misconceptions of the so called quality service were diluted in my grey cells for 15 minutes, and the unexpected as always to be expected in India, happened. Talk of providing wrong information, in an information age or era, and that too from Newark, my first stop for change of aircrafts. If it happens in a developed nation, we being a part of a 1 billion in a developing nation should have the heart to accept faults…..I repeat ‘faults’; and not ‘complacency attitude’. Having arrived in the international terminal in Mumbai, it took more than three hours, waiting in an amoeba shaped queue with multiple branches, to transfer to the domestic terminal. If that were to be believed, it will be easier to believe, that the so called international terminal was under construction, and hence provided with bare minimum facilities – seats ONLY and coffee @ 40 Rs a cup. Two fans hovered @ turtle speed in a hallway measuring roughly 6000 sq ft (waiting hall or corridor i am not sure). The occasional breeze as a result of the monsoon and aimless security personnel walking in and out of the hall was the only form of air conditioning. As always, a potbellied sardar took the responsibility of performing what one would assume to be as ‘security check’. American security seems flawless due to the technological advancement and measures taken even on domestic sectors. We would probably be ranked 100th in a world listing. Though wary of the security measures, the Indian security personnel like to smoke out the criminals, if not force a confession; which would result due to delays, unreasonable reasons thereby adding to stress fracture in the memory cells. Bribes are taken in the open by the ‘go-cart-boys’ and our elite task force, to schedule a faster security check-in. “We are like that only” is the common belief that unites Indian citizens.
Upon arrival in the domestic terminal I was rather taken aback to see the utilization of glass and steel, a resemblance of international airports designed and constructed in the 1990’s in the United States. (FYI: avoid Chicago airport if you can - looks like one humongous industrial shed). The International terminal in Mumbai, located 1.5 miles away, brought back memories of the dilapidated state of Ahmedabad International Airport (and to think this was under construction). India is progressing and has been over the past few years, and i believe the attempt is starting at a domestic level in most metro cities (that is/maybe a positive sign). After all money is the soul factor which deludes the common man; and our government as always has been quite effective in channelizing through sources they deem to be right. No questions asked, none answered; as international travelers continue to face hardships even in metro cities. I could only smile and say 'welcome to india' to the foreign tourists who like me had been waiting in a non-existent line for the past 2 hours to catch the transfer bus.
14th August 2008
"Kosher Kochi" - Flight lands in Kochi on time. My eyes got adjusted to familiar sights as i looked out of the window - dense coconut trees,and parched farm lands (due to lack of rain). Its 7am and the airport was springing with activity; few people wandering around the counter (seemed to be officials), non-interested taxi drivers in white mundu and shirt loitered around a local taxi hiring agency counter. On the way to my home from the airport (roughly 35 Kms), I passed through one of the busiest intersections in the outskirts of Kochi. An increase in the ownership of personal vehicles was evident as the car crawled through 100 ft in the space of 30 minutes. Bordering the vehicle on either side stood two monstrous trucks filled with sand, as we continued to tail a tilted state transport bus that seemed to spill people. To make existing matters worse, the government takes initiatives for road widening and building flyovers once in a million years. The same three pillars of concrete that I had seen one year back stand vertically on a land mine in the middle of a road with no demarcations. The strategies adopted in Kerala governments needs to be lauded!! and the on-ground efforts cannot be seen by the naked eye. Hats off to promoters of the state for coming up with the theme of 'God's Own Country'...Delete the backwaters and the greenery from the picture, rest assured even the demons wouldn't prefer to live in these cities (the fear of death as a result of getting hit by a private bus). I must say that people who drive an s class mercedes benz in such circumstances is extremely courageous.
This was only the start of things to come over the next 25 days - Time to break the shackles, break the rules and go into 'Overdrive'.
