Getting Through India’s Airport Antics
As Koh Phangan was coming to the end of its time and spending more time in London than necessary just wasn’t something I was leaning towards, I thought about where to go next. Although India popped up a few times, it was mostly just an easy answer when people asked me.
And then, when Skyping with my Tantric Philosophy Teacher, mid-conversation, he stopped and said:
‘Nav, I think you should come to Rishikesh and spend a month here if you can, to work in person. This thought just popped into my head so I thought I should say it. It’s up to you though.’
‘Hell Yes!’ I thought!
That’s exactly what I wanted to do next. So without any doubts, it was decided that I was going to India, along with @mindset_rebel to spend some face to face time, learning more about this field and its philosophy.
We had no idea where we’d be staying or what we’d be doing exactly but it all just felt SO right and we just decided to completely trust the process that this is exactly where we were meant to be…
.
April in Rishikesh to Explore More Tantra — Fun Times!
Before heading to Rishikesh, we decided to make a stopover and spend a couple of nights in Bangkok
We had booked a 5am flight from Bangkok to Delhi (with a stop in Kolkata) because it was the cheaper option. I wonder if the following was Life’s lesson of telling us to stop cheaping out over choosing abundance and ease.
We woke up at 2am and headed for the airport. When we checked in, the guy told us we would need to get off and collect our bags, go through immigration and check in for the next flight — all in Kolkata. Hmm, was that enough time to catch the next flight though?
We arrived in Kolkata. And immigration took a little while, we grabbed our luggage and literally raced to get to our check in desk for the next flight. The security guy didn’t let us through and told us we needed our tickets.
“Umm we’re showing you our e-tickets — this is all we have and we’ll get the boarding pass from the desk — can you let us through please so we don’t miss out flight :)”, we pleaded.
He didn’t budge.
We went downstairs and found another way in — another security guard allowed us to go through. And then we ran over to check in — I told the girl we were late for our flight, she queue jumped us for our check in, our baggage checks and then escorted us through security until we got to our gate.
We made our flight on time.
When we arrived in Delhi, all these plans we had made to get our sim cards, withdraw cash, have lunch, leave our luggage in storage , wait for our pre-booked taxi- didn’t quite pan out since we weren’t arriving at Delhi International airport. We were arriving at the Domestic airport.
And little did we know — Domestic Delhi airport doesn’t have ATM’s for foreign cards, so no cash for us. There are also no sim cards available to buy in order for us to get online, so we couldn’t contact our Teacher who booked the taxi. And we couldn’t find our Taxi Driver who had been pre-booked to pick us up.
Funny thing is we’d already ordered food at a Dosa stand (hadn’t paid yet because the dosa guy told us to pay him after eating). But we tried all the cashpoints and none of them worked — oops! They told us not to worry about the money so we ate the yummy Dosa and headed over to the bus stand to catch the bus to the International Airport.
Now we needed to pay for tickets to get the bus from our terminal to the International Terminal because the complimentary tickets are only for those catching a connecting flight. I noticed one of the guys at the bus desk was Punjabi so I spoke to him and explained our situation. He turned to the other guy and said:
“You have to give them a ticket, they have no money and they can’t get cash out — just print them two comp tickets”
We got our free bus tickets — yay!
And lo and behold we eventually made it to the International airport, where we could finally withdraw our cash and book our taxi to be on our way to Rishikesh.
Moral of the story — Book the easier direct flight to the International airport so we don’t have these problems? But then again, these stories are what make traveling a fun adventure while trusting that everything will just work out in the end :D
