Let's Go Sightseeing!

I’ve been on a sabbatical for almost six months now. One of my sabbatical dreams was to travel. & I did – to Bali & to the Indian West Coast. I had one more desire which I wanted to fulfill but was unable to draw adequate courage for. I wanted to travel solo.

I had done this once before but somehow, I felt intimidated. I guess I’d got used to traveling in company; venturing out alone seemed a daunting task. With these thoughts in mind, I got reminded again why N is my soulmate.

He not just encouraged me to plan my trip but also booked it for me before I could change my mind. After evaluating options like Kashmir, the northeast & Tamil Nadu, we narrowed down on Sikkim. Good weather, not too difficult to access, pretty & safe – it ticked all the relevant boxes.

I browsed a number of travel websites before I narrowed down on a 4 days-3 nights package by Make My Trip. Being the travel control freak that I am, I made the lives of the MMT holiday experts hell with my queries & requests.

But by the end of these calls, I was relaxed & looking forward to my trip. My departure day began quite badly, unfortunately. Google Maps pushed me to a route to the airport which was unusual & I was caught in the morning office traffic.

I’m one of those who prefer to bide time at the airport rather than running at the last minute. I was terribly anxious by the time I reached the airport. The chaotic check-in counters of Jet Airways didn’t help matters.

There are just three pieces of advice I would give to Jet Airways: 1) Please streamline your check-in counters; 2) Please fly your flights on time; and 3) Please drop the cocky attitude you have towards passengers.

The chaos at the counter gave me minor panic attacks about missing my flight but I needn’t have worried. The flight was delayed. It began with 10 minutes, then 15, and then a solid three hours, out of which two were spent sitting in the aircraft.

The excuses varied: smog, only one runway being operational, and VIP movement taking place. The two hours in the aircraft were almost a hostage situation. The crew served water bottles only when many passengers asked for it.

Food requests were summarily shot down saying they can serve only once the flight takes off. I had to plead for at least a bun mentioning that I’d not even had breakfast given that it was supposed to be a 1025 flight. If the two hours of waiting had been at the airport, passengers could at least have eaten something. Mercifully, the crew member gave me a pack of cookies.

My folks were getting more & more worried with every delay as from Bagdogra, it was a 4-5-hour drive to Gangtok. Driving in the hills & crossing west Bengal – both seemed ominous at night. To assuage their fears, I’d to keep my own morale high.

I kept telling myself that the worst was behind me. & I was right.

To be continued…

(This is the first of the six chapters of the 500-words-a-chapter chronicle of my Gangtok trip. Back with Chapter 2 soon!)