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The unplanned trip

It was such a dreadful experience, I don’t even have the heart to write about it. Yet, it provides me with all the substance my blog has been conspicuously lacking of late.

It’s undeniably true that I’m lazy. The price I paid this time around is all too much for me to forget. I wish I had invested a little effort in chalking out the details.

I didn’t bother to get my luggage ready on Sunday. I hurried through the chore only on Monday morning, losing precious time in the process. I hadn’t even withdrawn enough cash from the ATM the night before. So after the packing, I dashed for the ICICI ATM, but it wouldn’t accept my HDFC Bank card. Great! Just what I needed. The lessons were flowing in already. I hurried to Canara Bank and its ATM, luckily, didn’t disappoint.

I returned home, picked my luggage and hurried my way out, took an auto to the KSRTC stand at Majestic and enquired – only to be told (it was 11AM by then) that the next available bus to Chennai was at 1PM. The trip would take a good 8 hours…too late for my 9PM flight to Kolkata. The 11AM bus was already full.

I took an auto again, this time to the railway station, though it was just a stone’s throw away. I guess I was to panicked to think rationally. The rickshaw, having discovered yet another hapless passenger in me, asked for Rs.20 – I had lost the urge to haggle by then. The drama at the railway station was to soon unfold.

I had already been told by someone earlier that the train would take 6 hours to Chennai. I frantically bought a current ticket but didn’t know which was the next available train. I asked at the enquiry – and was told that my train would leave at 2PM and reach Chennai at 8:20PM. Now, this couldn’t be happening to me. I was running out of options.

Hobson’s choice to the rescue: I took a cab to the airport – the ride costing me a cool Rs.1000. I bought a Kingfisher ticket to Chennai for around Rs3.7K. The flight was scheduled at 3:40PM, the trip to Chennai would take exactly an hour – which seemed rather odd to me since the Chennai-Kolkata trip would take 2 hours.

Chennai airport is located in a very picturesque location. My wait wasn’t long, especially since I was famished and spent some time at the airport restaurant. The trip to Kolkata went fine. My few days there was very hectic.

I returned to Bangalore this morning.

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Comments

Deepanjan said…
Hey, I didn't know you blogged!
Keep going!
;)
Wednesday, January 07, 2009 5:53:00 AM
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