As tense as all the trips! partI

The trip to Russia is gonna be one of my most memorable trips due to so many innumerable reasons not the least of which being that it is my first official tour... The takeoff of the trip was filled with so many uncertainities for starters.. Firstly we were supposed to leave on thursday early morning from chennai and we were in our office on wednesday morning in hyderabad still not sure whether we would actually make it. The reason being that the visa was supposed to be processed on wednesday at Chennai Consulate and obviously without which there would be no possibility ofthe trip..So the morning in offfice was spent on worrying whther the visa processing would come though and whether we would get confirmation on it before catching our flight to chennai at six in the evening...We got word on the visa only by around 1 in the afternoon from chennai and it was that among the three of us destined to make the trip one of our visa was rejected due to some administrative goof up..So myself and nvr were supposed to make the trip.. And now started the running arnd...first for collection of forex which seemed to take till eternity for approval and availability and boy was it a long drawn process coupled with problems with availability of cab to drop us at the airport in hyd..so by the tim we left office it was 4 in the evening...came home and suddenly u find that the last minute packing necessities rarely ever gets over in a minutes...it became quite a long drawn process given my lapses in memory.. and by the time was done with eveything and ready to take the cab the time on the clock read 4:50 p.m. The distance between my home and the airport with the least traffic would take arnd 20 mintes..and as luk would have it encountered heavy traffic on route..but not just that there some more bad news coming.. my friend to whom i entrusted the responsility of getting my jacket from his home to the airport..however my friend equally blessed with poor memory had but obviously forgotten it..now u might be wondering whats the big deal with just a jacket being forgotten...however we are traveling to russia where the day time temperature is -16 degrees !!! I have lived all my life in te trpics and even my vacations have not been spent at any temp less than 10 degrees...so u can imagine its gonna be quite an experience and on the way to airport i find out that the my friend who is just abt to reach the airport say that he has forgotten it ( I bought this damn thing just for the trip on the previous sunday for the specific purpose of battling the cold in russia).. anyway then we decide to call another friend to take it from my friends place and deliver it at the airport..while i am biting my nails trying to figure out whether i would reach the airport in time or the jacket or neither...finally i do make it to the airport..the time on the clock 5:30..to find out that i am the last guy to check in and the boarding announcement has just been made.. however my jacket is yet to arrive so I requested the guys at paramount to give me some more time to wait at the entrance to take my jacket...however the traffic as usual messes up things and the final announcement of boarding has just been made Ground flight attendant asked me when is my next connecting flight from chennai..which is thankfully after quite some time at arnd 3:30 in the morning the next day and this time luck was in my favour and paramount was flying one more time frm hyd to chennai on that evening at arnd 9:00p.m. The attendant promised to deliver the jacket through the next flight operated by paramount..so with a quick exchange of phone nos and a lot of trust i boarded the flight to chennai..spent the entire flight duration abt hundred things whether my friend who is supposed to get the jacket will hand it over to the attendant trusting him and then further will the attendnt actually come good on his promise and will paramount cooperate for the delivery of the jacket on the next flight...so many complications..Landed at chennai collected my baggage and tried to talk to some authorities there and explain my problem...(In all these complications I had to basically rely on my friends phone as my phone did not have balance and could only be used for recieving purposes and that too due to roaming in chennai will not be possible)... As luck would have it my friends phone conked off due to low battery when we landed in chennai... anyway all though the authorities there seemed really busy promised that they would get in touch with me once the jacket arrives.. again a quick exchaneg of nos...so with more tense moments to come we waited at the airport for my jacket to arrive..In the meanwhile had my dinner and my friend got his phone working and we finally we had a communicating device (cant imagine a life without cell phones)..as luck would have it again the flight to chennai was delayed by half an hour and by the time it came to chennai at arnd 10:40...there was shift in duties at the airport and the paramount authorities to whom i talked to were no longer on duty.. so i got in touch with the person on duty at the airport who of course is completely unaware of the situation.. I called up the attendant at hyd and he reassured me that he had sent it by the next fight and i had to wait to see if it arrives at the conveyor belt as no one else seemd to have a clue....luckily it came through..there now at least i had my jacket ( means of survival in extreme cold). We trudged along to the international airport which thankfully was adjacent unlike in Mumbai..and guess what we find out that the flight is delayed by around one and a half hours.. we practically slept of at the airport after running arnd the whole day..The airlines guys( emirates) had arranged for snacks for everyone but we were in no mood to eat basically slept at the airport... finally began our trip to Moscow via Dubai...


More tense moments in Part II...contd