ok, so I'm finally here in Mumbai (most people seem to still prefer calling it Bombay) - My flights did not end up being as direct as they were supposed to be...
It all started in Seattle around noon on July 25th - Janie was sweet enough to drop me at the airport, I boarded my flight 40 min before take-off time, then proceeded to sit there on the plane for a total of 4 hours because the airline (NW) was having computer problems - the entire US system was down, so they were going through baggage maually to make sure someone was present on the plane for every piece of luggage. This, I presume, is so someone doesn't check a bomb onto the plane who isn't suicidal.
My layover in Amsterdam was 3 hours long, so I missed that connection which would have brought me straight to Mumbai and I would have arrived at 10:30pm on the 26th. I waited in an enormous line, then got a new booking for the next flight which had a transfer in Bahrain - and if you're like me, you'll say, "Where is Bahrain?"
So I get to Bahrain 20 minutes before my flight was scheduled to leave and the transfer desk worker said the flight had already left. I don't know about this since I've never heard of planes leaving early before - my only guess is that boarding was finished.
So now I'm stranded in the Bahrain airport with 5 other people in the same predicament. We all had to negotiate and wait there for about 3 hours. Two of them took flights to other parts of India instead that left later that night - apparently they were planning on heading to those areas via Mumbai anyway, so they opted to just skip Mumbai.
So (I like to begin every paragraph with "So") that left 4 of us - one Indian gentleman who is a computer tech for clinical trials in Mumbai, one American man business school program director from Michigan, and an English bloke who works for an electronic firm in Tampa. We banded together - we were all so glad not to be alone in this terrible situation. None of us had any or our luggage besides our carry-ons. We were all tired and astonished at having missed 2 out of 2 connections.
So (ha ha) we ended up staying at the Delmon Hotel in downtown Bahrain. We got to the hotel at 12:30am and we all agreed we should go to the hotel bar for a beer to unwind. The hotel had several bars - very strange - there was a hallway with doors leading to various clubs and all of them had pictures of women outside who apparently worked inside - dancing? or more? I'm not really sure. Luckily, we found the "Australian" pub in Bahrain that had a Filippino cover band. We had a lot of fun getting to know each other, singing to the songs the band covered (Guns'n'Roses, Violent Femmes, Prince, AC/DC, etc.), watching the US military guys act out, and drinking beer. There weren't any Arabs in the bar, not even working there - everyone was Asian or American or European. We had wondered if Bahrain was going to be "dry" like Saudi, but lucky for us it wasn't - although it appears most Bahrain nationals are.
After the bar, I mean, So, after the bar, we went out for some amazing food at a restaurant nearby - I had my first real hommos (that's how they spell it), dolmas, salad, fries, etc. The food was delicious. And while we ate, the news coverage of the Isreal/Lebanon conflict played on the TV - but it was less like news and more like an MTV music video - really glamorizing the Lebanese military. It played more like pro-arab propaganda than unbiased news. But then again, our news is probably pro-Isreal propaganda, but it's just more sly, rather than the overt display of support we witnessed. Then it was off to sleep.
The Englishman caught a morning flight because he was a business class passenger and they had seats on business class on Gulf Air, which is the nicest airline around here. They said the 3 of us could purchase upgrades for $600 US and we all declined and decided to sight-see instead and then catch the 5:15pm flight on Air India.
After about 5 hours of sleep on our springy twin beds, we did some shopping, eating and walking around Bahrain, then went to the airport about 4 hours early to make sure everything was sorted out. We had to wait over an hour for Air India agents to arrive, and when they did, they said we were NOT booked on the flight. He said our agent had booked us on the KLM system, and that system is not connected with the Air India system...sheesh. He told us to wait until 3:30 to see if anyone dropped the flight. Things were looking bleak. No matter how much we tried to negotiate, the Air India agent claimed the flight was completely booked.
Then the Indian man in our little group, Shamjith, performed a miracle. He got on the phone with a travel agent from his company in India and that agent simply booked us all onto the flight. We went up to the counter with our confirmation codes and the counter agents were dumfounded - they gave us our boarded passes and off we went! On the way to Mumbai at last. This time with a stoppver, but not a transfer - I couldn't face another transfer...
The Air India plane was unbelievably hot and stuffy, old and dirty, crowded...The only highlight was the beautiful saris worn by the beautiful flight attendents. The worst part was the toilets - they were filthy - like worse than a really filthy porta-potty. I've read before that only the lowest caste can clean toilets, so maybe they need to hire someone from that caste because those things are not getting cleaned - yuck.
We stopped in Qatar for an hour, let people off and new people on...then I reached Mumbai around 1:30 am. After I cleared immigration, I set out on a serious mission to recover my luggage - I had 2 suitcases full of every imaginable thing I'll need while I'm here for 6 weeks - I wasn't going to leave the airport without them.
2 things I forgot to mention up to this point: 1) my ulcers are back with a vengeance and I've spent all of this time in dire pain with a burning gut because my Zantac is in the checked luggage (that was so stupid of me!); 2) I am the only white woman I've seen since I arrived in Bahrain, When I walked on the plane out of Bahrain, all of the people stared at me - I felt more alien-like than I've ever felt in any of my travels.
So it's almost 2:00 am in the Mumbai airport now and this is the absolutely worst airport I've ever seen or even imagined in my life. I was sent outside to go up a lift to the 2nd floor to find the KLM office - walking down the street was a little sketchy - I held my shoulder bag closely. Then I went into the building with the airline offices, but it seemed more like a squat - the whole airport reeked of pee, but this building must've been made out of pee because the stench was unbearable, there were strange men here and there, sleeping, smoking, hanging out. Strange smells - incense/tobacco sort of smell(?).
So I wound up the sketchy stairwell ALONE and arrived at a doorway with about 7 men in uniforms. At this point, I'm paranoid and imagining them doing the worst with me. 3 of them lead me down this long hallway - I haven't seen an airline office yet and I've been walking in this labyrinth for awhile - it's more like an abandoned building - it's a scene straight out of the game "Silent Hill" - finally I get to a real airline office with real KLM agents and no one has abducted me! YES! I'm alive! And the agent had vouchers for my bags! She took me to the bag storage room place where I had to wait around for a bunch of Indian men to act sufficiently beaurocratic, then she walked me through customs, I got some rupees and hired a pre-paid taxi to the Hilton.
The taxi was also sketchy. I was ALONE with about 6 men milling about. I didn't know which one was my driver or if they were even legitimate, although the number on the car matched the voucher I bought. One of the men starts driving, then as we exit the airport, a police officer checks my voucher - that's comforting - a police officer knows where I am, then seconds later, out of nowhere, the driver throws open his door and bolts out of the car before I can ask where he's going, then another man comes running up from behind and jumps in the car to start driving - here's where I panic, I jump out of the car because I think this man is trying to steal the car with me in it. The old driver sees me do that and comes back over to clear things up - he said this other guy would be my driver if that is alright...strange...
So the drive took a long time, I get to the Hilton around 3:30am - I go to check in and -wouldn't you know it - they don't have my booking in the system! Of course! Whatever could go wrong did! At this point I had been in transit for over 48 hours, I was tired, had raging heart burn, a headache, and a feeling of utter hopelessness and frustration. They told me to sit down and wait while they tried to figure it out - as I went to sit down, I saw a Scandanavian pilot who was also sitting and waiting for his room booking to get worked out - he said he hadn't slept in 20 hours - to me that sounded like petty whining at that point and my heart completely sunk and I felt terribly sorry for myself and the tears started to roll uncontrollably down my face. I cried there in the waiting room for about an hour while they figured something out. Luckily it was the middle of the night, so not that many people saw me. I was just so tired of waiting for bookings to get worked out - it was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Around 5:00 am, the Hilton rep informed me that they had rebooked me in the one of the nicest/priciest hotels in Mumbai right next door in a Ocean View room! Yay! My room is so nice - I love it - I don't want to leave. I could have never afforded that room on my own, so it's pretty cool that it all worked out this way.
My fingers are getting tired here - ha ha - I still haven't slept - I'm trying to stay up until night time to get onto India time - which is 12.5 hours later than Seattle time.
I have more to say about Bahrain, but I'll have to write more on that later.
I've taken some pictures, so I'll try to upload them from here.
peace and love and namaste to all of you - thanks for reading this - my next posts will hopefully be more uplifting! :)
