EWR or HAJ?

Diwali in Delhi...

Sublime at Samode...

Bollywood in Bombay...

Elated at Ellora...

Awestruck at Ajanta...

I think I was the only person who had a good night’s sleep last night. Poor Ferris couldn’t breathe because the power was off all night and her breathing machine wouldn’t work. There was a strong rain all night and Cliff and Cathy had a water leak directly over their bed. Meanwhile I was peacefully asleep.

In the morning when we woke up the power remained off. If power is off, there is no hot water, so we delayed taking showers until electricity returned and the water could heat. By 8am there was no change so we decided to take sponge baths and wait until our layover in Mumbai at a day hotel to clean up before our flight back to the US. We ate breakfast, filled out hotel feedback forms and gave high marks to Alex and low marks to electricity, and departed the hotel at 10.

A note about electricity at Siolim House. Power was constantly going off throughout our stay, possibly due to the non-stop rain. We discovered there was a huge panel in a cupboard next the table where we ate breakfast that contained all the fuses and master switches for electricity. We joked that the inside looked like something out of a mad scientist's laboratory. There was a huge red dial in the middle and buttons and switches on either side. Frequently Alex would come running, open the cupboard, flip switches and turn the big red dial and suddenly power would resume. One day we were introduced by Alex to his new intern of sorts whom he was training to perform the many tasks that Alex did so well. I’m sure that manning the electrical cabinet was one of them. I suspect that when Alex went home for the evening to his family, that junior intern was supposed to make sure the backup generator got turned on when the power went out, but that it didn’t quite happen the way it was suppose to last night.

Back to our travels. We were scheduled to depart Goa at 2 pm and arrive in Mumbai around 3. Then Ferris and I would go to a day hotel and get to the international terminal at 9 or 10 pm for a 11:50pm flight to Newark. Cliff and Cathy would be staying a few more days in Mumbai before returning home. The weather was gorgeous and sunny in Goa as we waited but we began hearing reports that the rain we’d experienced the past two days was related to a cyclone now moving toward Mumbai.

At first our flight was delayed a half hour, then an hour, and so on. Cliff somehow found a deluxe (for Goa) waiting lounge where we could order lime drinks. Our part of the lounge didn’t always have electricity or AC but it did have comfortable chairs. We watched weather notices on TV and chatted with fellow travelers sitting near us, mostly Indian businessmen who like us were making fun of Indian inefficiency. Finally at 4:30 we got the word to board. We waited on the tarmac for quite a while in Goa, and circled over Mumbai for another long while. What is a short 45 minute flight ended up taking 2 ½ hours from boarding to landing.

At the airport in Mumbai Ferris and I said our thanks and farewells to Cliff and Cathy. It was now 7pm. Because our Goa flight had taken off much later than planned, we canceled the day hotel reservation and headed directly to the International Terminal. We were glad we did because it took us over an hour just to take the airport shuttle bus from the domestic terminal to the international! So it was well after 8 pm before we arrived at the Continental check-in desk.

That’s not the end of our story. We’d made plans to extract our cold weather clothes from our bags (which had been synched with a tight security band and required finding a scissor to open) and change into them in the airport. But the international terminal was jammed with Muslims in white robes headed to Saudi Arabia for the HAJ! You know things are bad when you’re turned away from the ladies room by a toilet attendant who wags her finger at you and says “very dirty here; very dirty” and escorts you to another ladies room. I didn’t realize that you must be rid of your normal clothing and into your white HAJ attire before boarding the airplane until this airport experience. We were not the only people in this terminal trying to change clothes.

We finally made it through to a business class lounge for one hour of rest (and a lively conversation with an Indian woman who now lives in New York) before heading to our flight. We flew Business First to Newark and arrived (after a 16 hour flight) at 5:30 am on Nov 12.

Arrived to find the temperature a brisk 50 degrees and the trees in Central Park are yellow and red and beginning to cover the ground. A picture perfect fall scene. Quite a change from where I was this morning, half a world away.

So to bring this trip's journal to a close, here are a few favorite moments with the most cheerful and resourceful traveling companions anyone could wish to have. Here's to our next adventure together!