Cheap Airline but afforded a once in a lifetime view!
We woke up early to catch the flight. We are going to the state Sikkim, India. Sikkim is north of Calcutta. Its northern border touches Nepal and its eastern border touches China! I expect to see change in facial structure as we make our way there.
We took an airline named "Go Air" to fly there. A name that when you say it sounds like a corky cheer ... for breathing.
This airline was really cheap. First we get on and the seats don't lean back ... the leaning seats must have been the high class package ... which we apparently did not get. Leaning seats in this airline must only be in first class!
I remember a point when we were on the way ... everyone had settled in and all comfortable and some were taking naps. All of the sudden we here a sudden noise run throughout the cabin that woke everyone up! It turned out that someone had sneezed!!! That's right ... sneezed! The tubing and and insulation was so cheap in the plane that the noise of the sneeze echoed throughout the metal canteen they called Go Air! ;)
I'm just happy I never had to use the restroom in this flight. I would have been afraid that strong noisy flush in planes in this one would have sucked all the week structure and I would have been flushed out of the plane. Although, I was beginning to think ... it's a bad economy and gas is expensive so why carry excess weight to save money ... they probably released all the waste in mid air! People seem to unfortunately treat everything outside as if it were a bathroom anyways. I'm starting to pick up how these Go Air executives think!
It took us 6 HOURS to get to the final destination. The cheap airline actually stopped along the way to multiple cities to pick up more people ... much like a BUS stopping at a BUS STOP or a train at a train station! It just simply landed at cities along the way ... let people get on and took off again ... then landed at the next city in the path, let people get on and took off again! At the last stop ... it actually flew over the city we were supposed to land at to another on the other side (Guhwaty, Assam, India) to pick up people then flew back to the city we needed to land at! I'm just glad they didn't drop us off in the wrong city! :)
Furthermore ... for some unconceivable reason, our flight number changed at one of the stops! First off ... how the hell can a flight number change MID FLIGHT!?!? Well, it did so the at that stop, the ground crew actually came on board to check our boarding passes while we were on board. Thinking more about it ... I supposed we could have had a security breach in mid air. One of us could have been transferred mid flight who hitched a ride off a SEAGAL and taken a seat that he/she has not bought. ;) Just trying to convince myself.
So once the train conductor stamped all of our tickets .... I mean the ground crew checked our boarding passes, we were ready to take off. But we heard yelling behind us. There was a passenger and a male flight attendant yelling at each other contesting the seating arrangements. People were going along as if was normal ... but caught us by surprise! Well, folks ... the city we were stopped at was New Delhi. Apparently, New Delhi is like the New York of the states in terms of "in your face" direct communication. So this was normal ... they settled and we took off again.
So, in short Go Air was cheap! I wouldn't be surprised if they actually used regular gas to fly! Most airline manufacturers names have ring around them like "Boeing" or "McDonnell Douglas Delta" that gives you a sense of security of ... "ah ... that names sounds like they know what they are doing". After this silly ride with Go Air ... I would guess the manufacturers name was "Ramesh's Best Plains pvt ltd." ... notice planes is spelled wrong.
ONCE IN A LIFETIME VIEW
Although, this was the plane ... we are grateful because it did afford us a once in a lifetime view of peak of Mt. Everest from the plane! Amazing to see the world's tallest peak at eye level!
Once we landed in Bagodra, we had a 5 hour drive up into the mountains. That indian driving thing again was once again bothersome. I'm sure we can all imagine how crazy our driving is but this time place that on the 1 and a half lanes wide roads with two way traffic around the mountains with barely any barriers to the cliff ... in fact, sometimes, just raw cliffs waiting for the drivers to make a slight error. It was the season for landslides ... in fact, we probably had just missed a few as the mud was fresh and wet.
Shakespere
Srin and Ramesh were so rattled that they had to force themselves to sleep so they wouldn't worry about it. I on the other hand I, a silent warrior of the night cannot sleep when rattled ... so there I was left alone to bear the suspense all alone in the mountains ... left to fight the fear by thy self. The nightfall was amongst us ... as the "crack of doom" was approaching. Shall I admit a "farewell to all my greatness"? ..... NOPE!! ..... cus .... "I'm a survivor, I'm not gonna give up, I'm not gon' stop, I'm gonna work harder!" ~Destiny's Child.
Okay ... enough of that. The ride was definitely an adventure. At one spot at as we made our way up and it was almost dark ... traffic had backed up for about 45 minutes because a land slide had occurred just ahead. All the people got out of there jeeps and we interacted with some folks. One of the drivers for the jeep walked up to me and started talking ... I knew English and Gujarati .... he knew neither but knew more languages (Nepali, Hindi, Bengali). But we still found some way to laugh ... it's interesting how people can communicate without words.
As we saw all the traffic started to move forward ... I yelled out "Chaloo, Chalooooo"!! Everyone started to head for their jeeps and we went on our way. My outburst of "Chaloo, Chalooooo" was apparently hilarious to all the people ... especially Srin and Ramesh and so with that ... the phrase of the trip became ... "Chaloo, Chaloooo"! Hence the title of this blog. I started it but Srin and Ramesh really made it the theme of the trip for two reasons:
1) Ramesh - he lives in india and being his wedding, he basically planned the travel arrangements for the trip. But it was planned in such a way that we had no moment of rest the entire two weeks we spent with each other .... hence "Chaloo, Chaloooo!"
2) Srin - after my "howling" of Chalo Chalooo ... for the rest of the trip, he probably averaged only 5 minutes between his "renditions" of my yelling "Chalo Chalooo"!
Good times ....
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