28th March, 10.30pm we left home for our 3.30 am flight with fingers crossed hoping all would go well. The reason - Hyderabad has a spanking new airport which started operations on the 23rd of March and has been our daily source of entertainment. The first flight to land on 23rd morning was supposed to be the KLM flight arriving from Amsterdam at 1.10am. But that didn't happen for 2 reasons. One - a couple of Spice Jet flights landed earlier thinking hey, since the airport is complete, why not? And secondly, the pilot of the above mentioned KLM flight approached Begumpet airport and then he was told by the control tower to land at Shamshahbad, the new one, and his response was - Shamshahbad? Where is that? Believe it or not, he didn't know about the new airport. It seems KLM had forgotten to inform their pilots. So he pushed off to Delhi. There was no runway for him to land there, so off he went to Mumbai. Once he landed the aircraft there, he was informed about the new Hyderabad airport, so he finally turned around and landed, almost 12 hours late!!! Subsequently the 3.30 am flight to Ams. got delayed by almost 12 hours!!! So we had good reason to pray and hope we would not have any problems at the airport.
After driving for a good hour or so, almost 6 kms from the airport, we ran into a horrifc traffic jam. Forgot to mention above that the AP is ready, but not the roads leading to the AP!! The cab driver suggested turning around and entering the airport from another entrance, so we went all the way around for another 30 kms and finally reached the AP.
But, I HAVE to mention that the new AP is fabulous. Looks like any international AP with lots of duty free shops, places to eat, coffee and book shops etc. R and I checked in, wandered around and boarded the plane at 3am. We immediately fell asleep and so missed the meal they served at about 4am! Big mistake cos the next meal came an hour before landing at Amsterdam, about 11am Hyderabad time! Browsed the shops at Ams. making a mental note of what to buy at the duty free shops on the way back. Boarded our flight to Madrid, reached at 3.30pm local time, got baggage and waited at metro station to take train to hotel. Sounds pretty boring so far right? Aha! The fun starts now........
The train to the hotel involved changing trains at 2 stations. At the second one called Tribunal (see it on the blue line on this map), just as R and I were getting on the train, some guy came up to R and pretended to drop something at his feet. He was bent down and pulling at R's pants as if tugging them and I was wondering what the heck is going on. Then suddenly just as the doors to the train closed, he darted out of it. R suddenly said....I think he took my wallet!!! We pried the doors apart just as the train was leaving and we both jumped out. R ran after them - there were 2 of them - and i too sort of ran. But I had both suitcases so I was sort of shuffling. In the meantime, R had chased them and retreived his wallet which they had dropped on the station floor. But sadly - they had taken all our cash, almost $500!!!! Fortunately, our credit cards and driver's license were still there! Well....we learnt our lesson that day. Apparently they always work in teams of 2...one to distract you while the other robs you! Sadly we boarded the next train and reached our hotel about 5.30pm or so. Our hotel was OK.....great location, but the room was tiny and the bathroom even tinier! You could almost sit on the potty and brush your teeth over the sink at the same time...no kidding! Not that you would want to, but it was that small! All our twisting moves we had mastered in our yoga classes came in real handy while taking a shower...!!!! It was a 2' x 2' space.
We left at about 6.30pm and went to the Botanical Gardens across. Walked around the city a bit, had a pizza dinner with Dulce De leche pancakes and wine, bought some groceries and came back at 9pm or so. Crashed!
No comments:
Post a Comment