Travel stories

“Traveling- it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller” - Ibn Battuta

Challenges are always part of everyone's life; but it feels so that they are in love with me. Especially when it comes to travel; such surprises and challenges make a simple travel an adventurous one. It indeed makes you a good storyteller. :)

The much awaited trip of Pondicherry aka Puducherry was planned three months prior as my friend Elsa will be getting married in October. However, I wouldn't be in India to attend it. Just to enjoy each other's company after a year we had planned this trip. I invited my childhood friend Mona as well, after much of convincing she finally agreed. I was introducing her to fun of travelling; which was completely alien to her. It was the first time she was stepping out of Maharashtra, in fact out of Mumbai without her family. It was her first flight experience as well. I was excited that I was part of all this.

Travelling on your own has several tasks to be taken care; flights, hotels, food, places to visit, etc. I was all prepped up for it, but wasn’t aware that there would be a cancellation. Just three days prior to our travel date, Elsa had to drop out as her Aunt was been hospitalized. I couldn’t understand as how to react, for me it went all in vain. However, for me her aunt’s well-being was more important than the trip. At first I wanted to cancel the whole idea of going to Pondicherry without her but then I gathered all my thoughts. It was Mona’s first trip and it had to be special. We packed our bags and left for Pondy, our first stopover was Chennai.

The flight was at 10;30 am and guess what it rained heavily the night before. On a safer side, dad opted to drop us at the airport. Usually the airport is 20 minutes away from my home however it took us three hours to reach there. (With every tick-tock our hearts were pounding)

A special mention to the greatness of Indra god, he had to bless the city with heavy showers just on the day of our trip. Dad tried all his techniques to calm me down, however every minute I was on call communicating with the airline to delay the flight. By now you would have understood that we missed our flight. 

Traffic after Mumbai rains

When we reached the airport, we saw a lot other had missed it too. I got us on the next flight without retention and difference charges. (The perks of being a loyalty cardholder isn’t the case here, thankfully I had spoken to the airline prior about my delay)

The flight was at 15:40 however it got further delayed to 17:55 and we had to cancel our Chennai city tour. By then we had spent almost 6 hours in the airport glancing at Mumbai rains and of course frequently visiting the ladies room. Finally got onto the plane and reached Chennai. One of my colleagues Rohit had invited us over for dinner and stay. We went to my his place and experienced the best hospitality ever. His wife had made chicken curry, parota and rice for dinner. They were so kind and generous to accommodate us.

Like all planners I too had a plan B, one should always keep space for errors and mistakes. (Mostly applicable in my case )

Rohit and I talked about how the trip should work out. We hired a car for half day city tour  and took a slurp into those melting ice cream. (Unfortunately the ice-creams couldn’t bear Chennai heat :P)

And that marked to end of the day!

Some more coming up! :)