This all started well with me developing a bout of gout two
days before we were due to leave. I am a
most unlikely sufferer according to all the information on which foods cause a
flare up of what, described as arthritis in my foot is likely to evoke some
sympathy but described as gout is more likely to be met with guffaws. Well the anti-inflammatory tabs and my foot
up worked well and meant that we could set off for the airport without a
walking stick. By the way, gout is
bloody painful.
Then on the news we saw that a cyclone was heading across
the Bay of Bengal (no, it’s not an Indian Restaurant) and due to hit a little
south of Kolkata, Calcutta in old money, just as we’re heading to Kolkata. Impeccable timing. Our route being Ringwood, Heathrow, Mombai,
Kolkata, Guwahati, wait for our taxi to Sandrup Junkhar and into Bhutan. A route that ended up with no disruption
from the cyclone and still took us 31 hours from home to our hotel – and we do
it for fun.
We’d never been to Mombai before but it was very Indian, a
complete and utter bureaucratic, overmanned shambles which despite all the apparent
evidence to the contrary, still worked.
Fortunately we had over 2 hours between transfers because we needed all
of it and this was for an internal flight.
We had to explain at least three times why we had no boarding pass for
our onward flight (we hadn’t checked in yet), and what an e-ticket was. Once was to a soldier who had no reason or
right to know but whose big gun was a sufficiently persuasive argument. Oh,
and we had no rupees to buy a drink or food with. The bus to the domestic terminal set off on a
winding trip across a darkened airport past what seemed to be a plane
graveyard, a shanty town on the edge of the airport and after about 15 minutes
to the terminal where we checked in.
Just as we got through check-in, the queue was going through the gate
where the flight was boarding via another bus ride.
So we arrived at Kolkata, the plane half emptied, refilled
with people and on to Guwahati in Assam, where the tea comes from. It’s now 7.00 am Sunday, no rupees, no
exchange counter and just a very dodgy looking cash machine. No-one would take our US$ and we had a 6
hour wait for our guide and car to arrive from Bhutan. So, I approached two of the very few other
Europeans there, a Franco-German couple who live in Thailand and they sold us
some rupees. They were so helpful, they
wanted to give us the rupees but I insisted on paying for them. I was so light headed from lack of victuals I
even gave them a favourable exchange rate.
The wait here at Guwahati was because we’d had trouble
sorting out a taxi from the airport to the border and there had been secessionist
problems in the past so we were aware that, yes, there could be trouble brewing
in Assam.
Our guide was going to be in Bhutanese national costume,
carrying a sign with our names on and under the departure board at 1.30. Nothing to go wrong there then. At about 1.10 a short stocky man approached
us two bleary eyed, grubby and about the only Europeans in the terminal
carrying a sign with our names on. He’d
been there for an hour, outside by the door into the terminal with Departures
written above it and Bhutanese national dress appeared to be a pair of trousers
and a red t-shirt. He said it wasn’t
safe for a Bhutanese to travel in Assam in national costume. It was a relief to see him though as the last
piece of the jigsaw had fallen into place.
We had been delivered. Not in a
spiritual sense, more like a parcel.
No comments:
Post a Comment