Australian Autumn - day 1

The Phoenix has risen again. Yes, its this blog. It dies a slow death every few months only to be resurrected again when I travel. Not that I don’t travel more often than once a year, but I don’t really blog when I’m making small 3-4 day trips. Its only when I make an overseas trip which involves seeing new places and trying out new experiences that I feel the urge to write about it and share those stories.

So, here we are. Its 10.48am IST and I am in the plane, somewhere between Bangkok and Australia on my way to Melbourne. But, let me start at the beginning.....

2nd April 2011, 8.30pm.....

The match is on. The finals of the World Cup in cricket, where India is playing Sri Lanka and the way things are looking, India will lose. Srilanka won the bungled toss, chose to bat and thrashed out 275 runs, so we need to beat that score in 50 overs to win. Now we are batting, and ball 2 of the game Sehwag is out!! NOT GOOD! Another few more balls and our second player India’s fav Sachin Tendulkar in out. (Now some might say this was a good thing cos every game that Tendy got out early we won! But c’mon, this is the finals, we need him!) Earlier in the day we were bummed at having to leave for the airport right when the match would be getting to be exciting, but now we’re thinking....hmmm..maybe missing the match won’t be so bad after all? We won’t have to see our team get beaten!

So 8.30 we bid our adieus, I kiss the dogs a million times cos I won’t be seeing them for 16 days and off we go. No radio commentary in the cab so we are in the dark about the game till we get to the airport. Then the usual...standing in line to check in, trying to see which one is moving the quickest and adjusting our positions accordingly (something which by the way I have found NEVER works, its always best to pick a line and stick with it, but the better half does not agree). So we sidle up to the counter, now sort of in a hurry to get past security cos we keep hearing shouts and claps coming from the other side. Clearly our cricket guys are doing well, so we don’t want to miss any action. 

Almost done, then the Thai Airways guy throws a zinger at us...

TA guy - “Ummm, can I have your ETA please”? 

Us - Huh? ETA? What”s that”? 

TA - “Oh you need that to get into Australia”. 

US - “No, no silly man...we’re US citizens you see, we don’t need that” (pointing proudly to our precious US passports laying there on the table) And no, I didn’t really say ‘silly man”. 

TA - “No maam/sir, all visitors to Oz need it”.

So this back and forth went on for a few minutes, TA guy telling us politely we had goofed, and us insisting we didn’t need no damn ETA! Now I’m slowly starting to worry. Thoughts of catching a cab back home and forgetting about this trip also flash thru my head. (For those who wonder at the “also”, we had to cancel our tickets to go to Japan, cos of the tsunami etc. Australia was second choice!!!) I was doomed to spend my 50th birthday at home, eating vegan food and inhaling toxic fumes from outside.....

Well, turns out TA guy was right. But the good news was that its a simple thing you just fill out online, then you print out the copy and you’re good to go. So his very helpful buddy Mr. Rupesh Kumar, took us to a computer, we did the needful, then back to check in and finally we were done. (Note to self: send e mail to Rupesh’s boss letting him know Rupesh is the man). By now its 9.55pm. In the meantime a couple of calls to my dad as well as whoops of joy from the area beyond security confirmed that our desi guys were slowly and steadily hammering away at runs and doing well...in fact if they maintained this run rate, we could actually win.....93 runs in 92 balls needed.  We hurried thru security and when we got to our gate everyone there was watching the match. We quickly found 2 seats in front of one of the TV’s.

pics

By then it was 32 runs needed in 30 balls. Then they called it time for power play! Dhoni and Yuvraj were batting. And they hit. A four! Another four! The crowd was erupting. Every eye was watching the game. Newspaper vendors, food stall vendors had all abandoned their shops and had joined in watching! 20 runs from 24 balls. Another 4! And Dhoni hit again......finally it came down to 4 runs needed in 11 balls. He hit!!! Whooooooosh went the ball! You could hear a pin drop. It was a sixer! We had won!

THE PLACE WENT MAD! I mean MAD! People shouted and cheered and chanted India  won, India won! Squeaky noise making things were squeaked. Clapping, cheering, hollering...it went on for a good 10 minutes. It was really something and what a fabulous way to start our trip. 

Finally exhilarated and happy we boarded the plane at about 11.30pm. It was 45 minutes late but who cared? 

The trip from Hyd to Bangkok was a 4 1/2 hr blur! All I remember was boarding, then a meal a bit later of which I only remember some fruits that I either ate or was force fed, and then we were landing at Suvarnabhoomi airport. We had almost 2 1/2 hrs to kill, so we found our gate, a row of seats and slept! Two things I know - Bangkok airport is HUGE and I don’t understand a word the Thai people say!! No, I don’t mean the Thai they speak..of course I won’t understand that. But their English. So far I have not understood a word! Maybe it will get easier....?

So here I am on the plane, I think we have another 3 hrs to go. I watched Black Swan and am still not sure if I loved it or hated it. But Portman was good, really good! Then again a bit of dozing, more food and more movie watching. Finally we landed at 8pm, went thru the immigration and customs with no problems. We were a bit nervous having heard about how strict the Aussies were on bringing in food, plants, etc so we had nothing on us. Except my Icebreaker mints for which I got the stern eye! One poor Indian uncle-ji was nabbed cos his suitcase was full of Indian mithai. I felt bad for him :-(

Took a shuttle to the hotel, ordered some room service - soup and bread, and am now going to chalk out our plan for the next 4 days here in Melbourne! Stay tuned.....! Oh I love travelling....