It was around 3.00am when Saie waked me up and said that the taxi had arrived. Though I wanted it to come at 3.30am, it came a bit early. But as I was ready with everything the last night I washed my face and was ready to leave. Saie helped me getting the bags loaded into the taxi.
Saie is a great friend I have met, thought I knew him before that was brief he helped me a lot in this tour to India. I just wanted him to find me a place to stay, but he invited me to stay with him, and also other guys with him, Arun and Prai were cool. The last think Saie said to me before the taxi leaving there is ‘If there is some one else coming, just tell them to contact me’. Really nice friend..!
I was flying back to Colombo after on Air India Express(IX671) from Chennai Airport(MAA) to Katunayake Airport(CMB). The flight was at 7am and I thought I should be there three hours early. The taxi left from Saie’s house at around 3.15am and after a quick drive arrived at the airport at 3.15am. It was due to my miscalculation of the distance I went there another 45mins early. Also they started check-in only after 4.45am and I had to wait at the lobby for 1 1/2 hours, and I thought of sleeping there, but I didn’t because I had doubts of this place regarding thieves and cheaters. Anyway nothing happened wrong and the check in call came at 4.45am and i checked in as the first person.
Things don’t happen that faster always, and I had to wait till 5.45am for security checks and another 1 hour till boarding at 6.45am. While waiting for boarding I had a coffee and a sandwich. Thought the boarding call came at around 6.45am, things were again happening slow and late and the passengers were coming in till 7.15am and finally the plane took-off at 7.25am, 25minutes late.
I got my seat changed to allow a family sit together. The snacks were same as in the flight to Chennai, and we landed at Colombo Airport at 8.45am. I finished all the immigration formalities soon and came to the belt earlier to get my bags. Then only I realized of the bad side of checking in first. My bags came only in the last lot. So had to wait a bit more time there and came to the customs where I was not checked along with may others at that time.
Appa had come to the airport to pick me up and reached home in van at around 11.30am. So my story of my Indian tour ends with this. May be this is the only series I have written so long on my blog. May be only few are reading these, but it is just for me, as a dairy, just to look back someday. I would love to visit India again on a more planned tour someday in future and I might write that as well on this blog. So thanks for all you reading this all long blog entries….
Memories… Forever…
Saie is the only guy at the room who knew Vimal, so introduced him to others. In the mean time Leo Prakash of Leo Club of Nightingale called and informed that the project planned for today was cancelled due to unavoidable reasons. Then I contacted Leo Kannan of Leo Club of Valluvarkottam, and he too was busy with some office work and couldn’t meet him either.
At around 9pm went to dinner at Tharavad Restaurant, which is a kerala food place. Saie, Vimal, Prem, Anbu and some other guys were there. After dinner we went to the Fruit Shop in Besent Nagar. It is a special place for fruit juices and milkshakes. I had a pineapple juice. After coming back to the room, Anbu and Prem went to some friends house, and that was the last time I saw Anbu as he goes home tomorrow.
I came to Kicha’s room after lunch with Vimal, but we had already made the decision that I’m leaving Bangalore today. Vimal told we can go to Thanjavur on the way to Chennai, I also needed to see some places in this tour which didn’t happen yet. Kicha was not happy with my sudden decision, but I had to go. I asked Kicha to call Hithesh and Shibthosh to tell them I’m leaving and they came to Kicha’s room. It was a few days I knew them, but Shibthosh is a great guy. He is in his final year and will go from here this year and he is going to get married soon. They wished me good luck and I wished them the same. They left after a while.
At around 4.30pm I went to Vimal’s room from Kicha’s room. Franklin, the Tamil guy from Selam, was there with Vimal. Again he is another good friend of Vimal. Vimal was ready and we came to Hebbal bus halt and got a bus to Majestic bus stand from there. At Majestic bus stand we booked tickets for bus to Thanjavur. It was a Tamil Nadu SETC Ultra Deluxe bus. The bus was at 8pm, but it was late and came around 9.30pm.