Ehi there. Long time no see. Where have you been?
I apologize for long period without posts, but life has become a little bit more routine and we felt there was nothing interesting to tell.
Things are doing great. In work children with malformations come out like mushrooms after a storm. So always lots of surgery and lots of patients on the wards.
We have spent a couple od sundays doing not a lot.... relaxing, eating out (and drinking of course) and one sunday we went to a local national park..
We work 6 days a week, and are entitled to take one day of annual leave a month (in total 12 a year). As the year will end at the end of march we wanted to use those 3 days hardly earned. We decided to go to Goa......why not, its 1.30 hr from Bangalore on a airplane, there are cheap flights and , if we use a sunday we can make four days in a raw ( c'mon, I know that among you there are professionals in this kind of thing).
And so we decided for the 16-19 of march. Flights booked, hotel booked, oncalls rearranged. Ready to go.
The flight was at 6.15 AM. We woke up at 2.30 (yes 2.30am...... wtf kind of time is that???? That is REM sleep time, not wake up time damn it) in order to catch a prebooked cab at 3. At 4 we arrived at the airport. As we walked in, we checked at what gate our flight was.......mmmm...... surprise surprise, there was no flight at 6.15 to Goa, but there was one at 5.10... ONE HOUR EARLIER than we were told. We double checked with the May I help you lady who confirmed the 5.10 departure time. Nobody told us, nobody wrote to us and nobody changed it on the website. Phew, lucky we arrived early.
The flight was ok... After 1.30 half hour we realized that the plane was flying in circle over Goa. Some passengers asked why and the answer was that there was a thick fog and we could not land. 20 min later the Captain announced that we had no more fuel to fly around waiting for the fog to go away and we were heading back to Bangalore. ?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!? we have no fuel to fly around for 30 minutes but enough to make a 1.30 hour journey back to Bangalore........mah.....I ain't no air-pilot, but there is something wrong. APPARENTLY we were going to re-fuel and go back to Goa.... hmmmm likely story....
So we landed at Bangalore 3.30 hours later. We took the bus to the terminal and instantly knew there was something fishy going on when we were taken to 'arrivals' and not 'departures'....
"Arrivals?????? Arrival from where..... Bangalore???" FFS
"You can collect you luggage at belt number 5"
There you go..... 6-7 hours after we got up we flew to Goa and back.
So there you go, our trip to Goa was like a trip to 'Lapland' as a child..... you fly there and come back without getting off the bloody plane... The beaches did look nice though from 20,000 feet.. We asked for the refund of the ticket and called the hotel to cancel the holiday and have some refund back, tolerating some cancelation fee.
Brace yourselves....here comes the kicker.... The hotel told us that there was no cancellation policy and our reservation was not refundable.
So: Should we take an overnight train to Goa? bus? or give up?
" Never gonna give you up" and by YOU I mean GOA ( all nostalgic people click here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ&ob=av2n) we surfed the web and booked an overnight coach leaving bangalore at 20.00 and reaching Goa the following early morning. CHEAP AS CHIPS BTW..... should have done it in the first bloody place, leaving on the thursday.... oh hindsight is a great thing...
So we went back home, had a snooze and went back to the city to take the bus.
It was a bus with AC, nice and comfy reclinable seats, blankets and television. We had really a nice journey with Bollywood movies out loud and snoring indians....but we got there better that expected (although Louise was shrivelled up like a prune.... Going from drinking100 litres of water /day to nothing for 24hours "incase I need a wee")
The cab was waiting for us and took us to the hotel.
......
Are you still awake??????
If yes continue to read....
White sand, very warm and windy, warm pool, nice food......seafood cooked fresh just after the fishermen came back......paradise ( again for nostalgic click this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlWPUFgrAos, for younger people this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1G4isv_Fylg&ob=av3e).
Thank goodness everything went ok with the return flight, although neither of us was entirely happy until we were taken by bus to the 'arrivals' hall...
And FYI we have been on 3 more bus journeys that you could call 'the vomit comet'... and the flight to Goa (which actually was a round trip to Bangalore) had another vomitus passenger, sat right in front of us.... so the question is...
Is the incidence of motion sickness higher in the Sub continent that is India, or is this proof that toast is indeed a far better source of nutrition first thing in the morning than spicy curry?
I apologize for long period without posts, but life has become a little bit more routine and we felt there was nothing interesting to tell.
Things are doing great. In work children with malformations come out like mushrooms after a storm. So always lots of surgery and lots of patients on the wards.
We have spent a couple od sundays doing not a lot.... relaxing, eating out (and drinking of course) and one sunday we went to a local national park..
We work 6 days a week, and are entitled to take one day of annual leave a month (in total 12 a year). As the year will end at the end of march we wanted to use those 3 days hardly earned. We decided to go to Goa......why not, its 1.30 hr from Bangalore on a airplane, there are cheap flights and , if we use a sunday we can make four days in a raw ( c'mon, I know that among you there are professionals in this kind of thing).
And so we decided for the 16-19 of march. Flights booked, hotel booked, oncalls rearranged. Ready to go.
The flight was at 6.15 AM. We woke up at 2.30 (yes 2.30am...... wtf kind of time is that???? That is REM sleep time, not wake up time damn it) in order to catch a prebooked cab at 3. At 4 we arrived at the airport. As we walked in, we checked at what gate our flight was.......mmmm...... surprise surprise, there was no flight at 6.15 to Goa, but there was one at 5.10... ONE HOUR EARLIER than we were told. We double checked with the May I help you lady who confirmed the 5.10 departure time. Nobody told us, nobody wrote to us and nobody changed it on the website. Phew, lucky we arrived early.
The flight was ok... After 1.30 half hour we realized that the plane was flying in circle over Goa. Some passengers asked why and the answer was that there was a thick fog and we could not land. 20 min later the Captain announced that we had no more fuel to fly around waiting for the fog to go away and we were heading back to Bangalore. ?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!? we have no fuel to fly around for 30 minutes but enough to make a 1.30 hour journey back to Bangalore........mah.....I ain't no air-pilot, but there is something wrong. APPARENTLY we were going to re-fuel and go back to Goa.... hmmmm likely story....
So we landed at Bangalore 3.30 hours later. We took the bus to the terminal and instantly knew there was something fishy going on when we were taken to 'arrivals' and not 'departures'....
"Arrivals?????? Arrival from where..... Bangalore???" FFS
"You can collect you luggage at belt number 5"
There you go..... 6-7 hours after we got up we flew to Goa and back.
So there you go, our trip to Goa was like a trip to 'Lapland' as a child..... you fly there and come back without getting off the bloody plane... The beaches did look nice though from 20,000 feet.. We asked for the refund of the ticket and called the hotel to cancel the holiday and have some refund back, tolerating some cancelation fee.
Brace yourselves....here comes the kicker.... The hotel told us that there was no cancellation policy and our reservation was not refundable.
So: Should we take an overnight train to Goa? bus? or give up?
" Never gonna give you up" and by YOU I mean GOA ( all nostalgic people click here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ&ob=av2n) we surfed the web and booked an overnight coach leaving bangalore at 20.00 and reaching Goa the following early morning. CHEAP AS CHIPS BTW..... should have done it in the first bloody place, leaving on the thursday.... oh hindsight is a great thing...
So we went back home, had a snooze and went back to the city to take the bus.
It was a bus with AC, nice and comfy reclinable seats, blankets and television. We had really a nice journey with Bollywood movies out loud and snoring indians....but we got there better that expected (although Louise was shrivelled up like a prune.... Going from drinking100 litres of water /day to nothing for 24hours "incase I need a wee")
The cab was waiting for us and took us to the hotel.
......
Are you still awake??????
If yes continue to read....
White sand, very warm and windy, warm pool, nice food......seafood cooked fresh just after the fishermen came back......paradise ( again for nostalgic click this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlWPUFgrAos, for younger people this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1G4isv_Fylg&ob=av3e).
Thank goodness everything went ok with the return flight, although neither of us was entirely happy until we were taken by bus to the 'arrivals' hall...
And FYI we have been on 3 more bus journeys that you could call 'the vomit comet'... and the flight to Goa (which actually was a round trip to Bangalore) had another vomitus passenger, sat right in front of us.... so the question is...
Is the incidence of motion sickness higher in the Sub continent that is India, or is this proof that toast is indeed a far better source of nutrition first thing in the morning than spicy curry?
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