First foreign trip

Well finally the day came when I knew I would wake up and set foot on a country which would not be India.Had this trip come a couple of years ago I would have been excited like no tomorrow but during these 2 years many of my friends had already become "foreign returns" and had traveled to places as far as Europe and America and I was just visiting my neighbor Malaysia.

A country which had got its independence 10 full years after us. So I was thinking what possible development it could have made in these petty 52 yrs. I was just expecting to see another New Delhi ( I have never been to New Delhi).

So the time was 12am,the place Chennai International airport and the adventure had already begun. Our plane was not supposed to take off until 230 am but what were we seeing. The giant display boards were showing 1230 as the time of departure. It was already 1215am and we had only reached the airport. We thought it was some mistake on the part of the airlines and we kept going at our own sweet pace. Got the boarding passes and proceeded towards emigration. Like always it was only my father who was carrying a pen. So we had only one pen to fill all the four emigration forms, my father was extremely meticulous and made sure no errors crept in so by 1230 we were done with the forms and I saw my name was entered wrongly in the forms. I shouted a bit,but dint want to spoil the fun so overwrote and in the most clumsiest ways possible re-entered the info on the same form.

So 1235, the flight departure being announced and we weren't even through the security check.Panic set in. Looked like my first trip abroad would have to wait for more years. We hurried only to see a 500m long line waiting for getting security checked. We, out of panic went straight to the security guard and told him about our situation, but he in a very casual mode asked us to come in line and said the flight wouldn't go anywhere. We weren't convinced,after all who would sue him if the plane flew anyways.

So there we stood in the long long line while the time was running out. Just then another amusing incident happened.Jet airways flight to the same destination which was scheduled to leave at 215 was now leaving on 1215. It was already 1235 and people traveling by this plane came and stood right behind us. Looking at their situation did do a lot of good to alleviate our blood pressures. Finally at 1 am we were through the formalities and were all set to board the plane. We were going after all.

After walking down the Anna International airport for what looked like at least 2kms we saw our boarding gate and went through and sat in the plane. We thought we would be the last ones to enter but turned out 2 dozen more people came after we sat. For every person entering the plane my mother would say "We could have come even now".Finally after the 24Th person entered the plane and I was sick of listening to the same dialogue of my mother we finally took off.

The idiots of Air-India had put the AC to the coolest level I guess and I was wearing only a T-shirt. I felt very cold through out the night and the attitude of the air-hostesses was so cold that I even felt scared to press the button to ask for a rug, but I finally did which the hostess handed to me with a very cold face.

Looks like one of the reasons why MAHARAJA is going through losses is its air-hostesses' indifference for their work. I was on board for more than 4hrs but dint see one smile on their faces.Looked like they were being made to work against their wills or weren't getting properly paid,anyways with the promise that I wouldn't fly Air-India again(except on my return trip,which was on the same flight). I went to sleep. I got up in the middle of my sleep all coughing and sneezing.

Actually getting colds was nothing new for me but this was the season of swine flu. Thermal checking and checking for dripping noses es everywhere. So after a little prayer I went to sleep again to wake up at KL international airport.Just before landing we were given the forms to be filled for the Malaysian government. One of the co-passengers was probably not too good in English so he handed the form to my sister. She nonchalantly swapped his place of birth for his place of issue of passport and quietly handed him over his form and passport back and said -"I will fill the rest once the plane lands" .Now she was really nervous about what to say to him after landing as she has messed up his form, I scared her even more. evil me. The guy, we thought would give his piece of mind upon landing but turned out he left without a word.

So there we were standing in Kaula Lampur international airport. Till then I thought the best airport in the world was- Rajeev Gandhi International airport, Hyderabad. As it was finished only 2 yrs ago with the state of the art facilities,but my beliefs vanished straight away. This older KL airport had the best branded outlets which I had only seen in the best malls of India. Over priced articles kept under the banner of "duty free" and chocolates and everything. nice nice. Well done Malaysia nice job I thought. We started looking where we would get our luggage so that we would pick that up and go towards the immigration counter.

We went for a walk there but still no signs of the conveyor belt. There was one T.V which displayed our flight number and against it was written-"BAKU". some word in the MALAI language which we later found(after 2days) meant OPEN. We were in the middle of our walk when a train arrived. Well what in the name of God was a train doing in an airport. We thought lets board it and see where it goes. So we took the train which took us to the other building in the same airport, aah there was the immigration counter. But wait, to reach to it you had to fill 2more forms per head with only 1 pen.

One form had this warning about swine flu
-bringing it to the country is a crime.... and so on.
I thought they would do some thermal checking and stuff but 2 forms per head later we found ourselves standing at a long long queue at the immigration counter. Airport volunteers all around the place were scaring the tourists by wearing face masks.

This was probably the worst part of my journey. Standing in the queue where people of all nationalities were present. Not that I am xenophobic and all, but some of them were coughing and each cough scared the other passengers as much as it scared me and the worst part was the line was never getting shorter.
I then decided I am never leaving my country and going anywhere. Such long queues.Huh of course I took back those words later.After one long long hour we were through.
Thank god
so my journey began.......