36 hours after I left Portland, I reached my final destination (Khammam). It required two flights, two cars, one train and one auto rickshaw. For those with a Logistics bent of mind, this reminded me of a carton being shipped through a true multi-modal trip (In fact, I felt like one). The only thing missing was documentation physically being attached or pasted to me.
I didn't sleep at all in those 36 hours. I was hoping that I would get some sleep on the flights but kids on the flights made sure that never happened. Both my flights had tons of small kids and babies (there was one in almost in every other row) and almost every one of those babies was crying at one time or another. At times multiple babies would cry at the same time. It was like Olympics for baby crying. Is crying infectious? Does the noise of one baby crying make another baby cry? Am I about to come up with a break through theory here? I should say the parents of the babies were relentless in their efforts to calm the kids. Their tolerance and endurance were commendable.
Sitting on airplanes for 18 hours is a pain (with or without crying Olympics). I think long haul flights can be used as a torture instrument instead of water boarding. I strongly believe the effect would be similar. If not anything else, you could turn humans into cartons.
The guy sitting behind me on the flight from Frankfurt to Hyderabad complained to one of the air hostesses that the plane made too much noise while taking off and that they weren't maintaining the plane properly. I wondered what was going through the air hostess's mind at that time. I thought that guy might be an aeronautics engineer or he just made a botched attempt to strike a conversation with her.
After I landed in Hyderabad at midnight, I was pleasantly surprised to see how immigration check process was streamlined. Immigration officers seemed eager and fast. This was a far cry from the olden days when immigration officers would check every passport at snail's pace wondering why in the world they were there at this odd hour rather than being in bed at home. My enthusiasm didn't last long. My hopes were dashed. I had to wait almost one hour for claiming my baggage. It made me wonder if they were using bullock carts to haul baggage from flights to the carousels. I think the airport officials need to attend classes on theory of constraints to learn how one bottleneck process could affect the flow even when the other processes were working efficiently.
I reached Secunderabad railway station at 2AM (I was not sure about the day anymore). Secunderabad and Hyderabad are twin cities. I think there are three cities now with Cyberabad (yes, that's the real name) being the new one developed in the last decade. I expected the station to be crowded (how could it not be possible in a city with a population of tens of millions!) but the station was not crowded at all. Apparently, there were no trains scheduled to arrive or depart between 1AM and 5AM. Unlike Bombay, Hyderabad slept at night. There was tight security around the railway station with warnings advising passengers to not carry explosive items. When I was a kid, railway stations used to serve as night time shelters for the homeless. This wasn't the case anymore as railway protection force ensured that only passengers with tickets could enter the platforms at night. There were no other passengers on any platform at that time. There were a lot of railway coolies and workers sleeping on the floor. There were a lot of security people patrolling the platforms. They reminded me of the infected people in Will Smith's "The Legend". They would come only at night and roam the streets as if they were the rulers of the world. In fact, the security folks' attitude was exactly like that.
Secunderabad railway station at 2.20AM
The train journey from Hyderabad to Khammam was 5 hours long. There were no crying babies this time but there were cell phones. Each cell phone ring was unique with ringtone being a song from Bollywood (Hindi film industry) or Tollywood (Telugu film industry). I demonstrated my Iphone to my father, whom I consider to be on the other side of the digital divide. His expression was, "wow! world in the palm of your hands". My father bought his cell phone two years ago. He never checked the text messages. He had around 200 unread messages. All the messages were marketing spam except one, which was sent by me in May 2006. This explained why my father never responded to my text message.
AC Chair Car compartment
Khammam railway station. you can see the name of the city written in three different languages
My train at Khammam railway station
The trip has been really exiting so far. I am looking forward to many more fun filled experiences in the coming days. I discovered that my parents have a really cool gadget to take care of one annoying problem. Watch out this space for a post on it in the coming days.
The Sun in fog
If you are wondering how I got time to write this, I woke up at 3AM this morning (thanks to the jet lag) and typed it. I am now at an internet center tryng to make this h umongous post on a super slow connection. After discovering how slow the connections here are, i reduced the number of picture. I will look for an internet center that has faster connections and also computers with usb ports.
ions like these are everywhere
