india: first you have to get there

I had not left my country of origin for 5 years. As a general rule for pilgrimages I tend to gravitate to locations that promise a degree of financial asylum.  My brother and his family had moved to Southern India, well, the North of South India to be more precise. So off I went to the wild blue yonder for good company and a free place to stay for a few weeks.

LA to London, 7 hours of layover, London to Mumbai.

When I got to India I had a little over an hour to catch a connecting flight to Hyderabad.  There was a slight problem however: I needed to fill out an entrance form but had not written down the address of my destination. It was in a facebook message; but as I  had no internet reception to retrieve the information you might as well have called me vinegar. That’s right friends, I was in a pickle.  So I decided to use the only thing i knew to compensate for my lack of preparedness at the international security desk: confidence. That was rewarded with a guided tour to Indian  Immigration Security.

I told myself not to cry just because I was tired, frustrated, and trying to figure out where I was going to sleep in this small holding room until I was deported.  But I did cry. I. did. cry. Someone finally gave me their cell phone to use and I got the address I was looking for from my brother, and gave him an update on the situation.

At this point I had about 30 minutes to get back in line for International entry approval, beg a few people to cut in line, run to baggage claim, find out I was at the wrong baggage claim, run to the second baggage claim at the other side of the building, grab my bag, take it through security, have a man cut in front of me and start putting his bags through security, me strictly explaining to him that I had 20 minutes to get to my plane, proceed to put my bags through security without waiting for a rebuttal from him, run through a few more security points, have my bag checked, begging to be let through to get on the bus for the the departing terminal as there was about 8 minutes left to get on my plane, and then being told the flight to Hyderabad had been delayed.

I calmed the heck down and got on a bus that zig-zagged, swirled, and twisted leisurely back and forth on the tarmac. This made a 15 minute ride out of what could have been about a third of the time. But I wasn’t going to miss my flight, so who was I to complain? Instead I labeled it as an observation.

Jet-lag seems to have bypassed me and I am thankful for it. These last few days have been laid-back and delightful. I’m hanging out with my niece,  getting beat-up by my nephew, illustrating a book, watching cartoons, learning about minimalist camping and laughing  with my brother and sister-in-law.

I’ll take it.