Overcoming the "Country of the No"

We have spent the last week in beautiful, lush Kerala. Our time there was wonderful for countless reasons but to stick with our plan to meet Carolyn (and eventual flight to Thailand) we had to head north to Delhi. We planned long ago to purchase a domestic flight north (to avoid the 48 hour train ride!) and settled on an Indian Airlines flight from Trivandrum to Delhi as it was the cheapest option by about $200.

Buyer beware.

I've heard plenty of horror stories about Indian Airlines over the years, all mainly due to their history as a Government owned company that was totally mismanaged. Long story short, nothing has really changed. We got to Delhi, but the process was a disaster.

The cheapness of the flight was most probably due to the horrific 6:15am departure time. We were staying in Kovalam, which is about 15km from Trivandrum - thus we had a more complicated route to the airport. We amazingly got ourselves up at 4:00am (unheard of, for us) and thankfully put on some clothing before the adorable and amazing staff at our hotel (review coming soon), The Blue Sea, rang our doorbell at ~4:05am to make sure we were awake! Only in Kerala would your hotel staff care this much about you to do an in-person wake up call at this ghastly hour...

We quickly got our stuff together and headed down through a monsoon downpour to the main building. As with many hotels in India, the staff sleep in the hotel, often in the front foyer area so they are available 24-7. The rest of the amazing staff popped out of their makeshift beds like rockets and smiled at us bleary-eyed (in the dark, as the power was of course out) as one of the staff called our pre-arranged cab. We said goodbye to our hotel friends, especially the 16 year old Prassat, who gave us more of his adorable hugs and we were off into the rain.

After stuffing our oversized bags into the car while the cab driver didn't bother getting out we had a rather un-nerving drive down the rainy highway until we got to the airport on time. At this point, the nice smoothness of Kerala vanished into the morass of Indian corporations and the ugly, retarded, simply mind boggling disaster of Indian government bureaucracy.

After a stern military guard (this is normal) check of our tickets and passports at the door we found ourselves in the check in line. And there we stood. And stood. And stood some more. The sari clad check-in staff ambled about, spoke with one and other, pointed at their computer, totally ignored the increasingly annoyed Indian passengers, and then stood around some more. Utterly nonplussed about the fact everyone woke up at the crack of dawn and had now stood in line for 20 minutes.

An announcement on the loudspeaker announces for all the passengers on IC466 (our flight) to make our way through security. Key indication that everything is totally screwed up: the airport is not large. There are three checkin windows. IC466 is the only flight in the morning. There are a good 50 people IN LINE to check in as the announcement is being made.

After a good deal of glacial poking by a computer-staff looking person the check-in line gets moving. The process is smooth from this point besides the mention that we'll be changing planes in Kochi which is unplanned - the flight is only supposed to stop there to pick up more passengers.

We go through security, which is a mess and requires us to have a stupid Indian Airlines carry-on bag tag no one bothered to hand out. Our tickets are checked I think three times before we exit the line. We are tired. Alicia is over the process and wants to sleep. 6:05 pass, 6:10 passes... No announcements that we'll be late, since we are supposed to take off in five minutes and we are not even on the plane.

At around 6:15 we are all massed into a line to take a bus to the plane. Our tickets are checked two more times from leaving the airport door and getting on the bus (~ 10 feet). This being India everyone is pushing and shoving, especially old women in saris which reminds me of riding the 30 Stockton in San Francisco through Chinatown and having seemingly frail 80 year old women jab me in the kidneys with their canes to get on a packed bus.

The bus leaves the door area. Twelve seconds later we have covered the 20 meters to the plane (I'm not joking) and we all get of the bus in the same pushing and shoving process. It thankfully has stopped raining so we don't get wet as our tickets are checked again.

From here we thankfully sit down and have a somewhat normal 30 minute flight to Kochi. That is until we start circling the airport. There is apparently "foreign material" on the runway, and it must be cleaned. Yes, there is trash on the runway in India. Big surprise. After 15 minutes of circles, we get to land.

There is yet another pushing-and-shoving match to get off the plane where we wait for another bus to take us ~ 30 meters to the terminal. There we sit on the bus for a good five minutes while there is mass confusion of where we are supposed to get out. Questions by tourists and Indians to the staff on the bus provoke soothing-voice answers of 'just a minute' which sooth no one as the second the staff stop talking there are jabbering in their walkie-talkies to the staff outside the bus who seem oblivious to all of us packed like sardines on the bus.

We finally get out and thankfully Alicia and I are the first off. We are led by a very flustered man through the airport and smack into... another security checkpoint! He tells us to wait and has an animated conversation with a few very gruff looking military-guard people. My transfer pass is taken and shown to a giant angry looking Sikh sporting a monster turban and he looks at it like its some sort of bizarre token printed in a foreign language.

The line moves forward and we have no idea what to do. I'm asked for my boarding pass (which Alicia, as usual, has kept excellent track of). There is a problem with the pass but we are then let on by the increasingly frantic Indian Airlines guy. We then get to the security line and a military man tells me my carry on bag has the wrong carry on bag tag. I am to go back and get another. At this point I start to lose my cool (as I'm the first person out of 50 to deal with this nonsense). No one is telling us anything and the other Indian passengers seems as confused as I am. After a bit of loud-voiceness I get the Indian Airlines guy, who at this point I officially cannot stand, to talk to the guard to sort this all out. He clearly has no idea what is happening.

Alicia is taken into the ladies line where she stands with a young Indian lady. She joking asks Alicia if this is how airports are in America; apparently this is normal to her. She apparently sighed and seemed much more relaxed than I am.

During this time I'm being wanded for metal for the second time I'm asked for my transfer card which has been taken from me. There is mass confusion. I try and indicate that the giant Sikh man has it. After a moment he figures out what is happening a gives it to me, with gasp! .... a smile! My bag is then closely examined. There is much befuddlement on the four cameras and pile of film in my bag. I am then finally given my bag back.

Yes! We are through. We shall now go find our airplane and leave this cursed airport! Or not...

The Indian Airlines guy has vanished. No one has any idea what is happening. We find seats in what ironically are the most comfortable airport seats I've ever sat in - even in deluxe lounges in Europe. We relax into our wonderful chairs and ponder the vast terribleness of the airport.

Alicia is off to purchase coffee and a crappy snack at the coffee stand. We of course do not have small bills, as all the ATM gives you are massive, useless bills for normal transactions (no one has change here, more on that soon). So she waits for other customers to generate change and watches cockroaches crawl over the counter (brand name 'Coffee Day', 'nice' coffee counter at that).

After she is back I try and figure out what is going on. I ask someone who tells me the estimated departure and arrival times. I don't think he realizes he's told me the plane will arrive in Delhi five minutes before it leaves Kochi. I go to purchase an utterly crappy fried ball of vegetable goo and coffee and we sit and watch Indian TV. There are many commercials about paint, one of which is cast with an entire family of fat Japanese people, including one really fat kid.

After a while of staring at the departures board that says our plane is 'delayed' I make a few trips around the waiting area to try and find someone who knows something. After trip number three I find a growing crowd of disgruntled Indian businessmen. They have no idea what is happening, and we all chat for a bit. They, like many people from Kerala, are very nice and speak wonderful Indian English.

We all wait for a while more. No one knows anything. "No information". "Just a moment." The departure board says our flight scheduled to leave in two minutes and that we are all currently in the "security" line. This is a perfect incarnation of "the country of the 'no'", a phrase lifted from Suketu Mehta's amazing book, Maximum City: Bombaby Lost and Found of which I've read and Alicia is currently working on.

The businessmen are increasingly becoming agitated. The Indian veneer of polite waiting is starting to come off. The gentlemen I have been speaking with all of a sudden darts into an office next to the security line. There is a very official looking military person in there with three stars on his shoulder. His meeting is interrupted by my conversation partner. All the other Indian businessmen rapidly fill the office to capacity. They are officially, but politely, pissed. The military guy comes out and storms over to one of the useless Indian Airlines people with a walkie talkie. I comment to a nice European gentleman standing with us that this is going to get results. He is dubious. I smile at him as the Indian military guy is raising Cain by the security checkpoint.

I sit down with Alicia and watch a very distressed sari-clad Indian airlines staff person (the first one to appear in about 30 minutes). She gets people moving and interrupts the laughing-with-each-other useless people the businessmen have been speaking with and the doors to the outside are opened. A massive line develops. Alicia and I watch with amusement. Once it starts moving we get in line only to have process come to a dead stop. There are two buses stuffed with passengers that are not moving. My theory is that the Indian Airlines lady moved everyone to the buses to satisfy the military guy, but the plane is not yet ready. The people on the buses look miserable. The rest of the Indian Airlines staff is back to laughing right outside the buses. No one is telling anyone anything, besides telling me that our estimated arrival time in Delhi is impossibly soon, as it would assume the plane was leaving in five minutes (with half the passengers still inside) and then we would magically fly faster than the speed of sound.

After yet more waiting, and two more checks of our boarding pass we are on our way. We move a whopping 30 meters to the plane and get on board. We take off and are served some sort of breadlike-dosa-rice-substance and a bottles of water the size of my pinky finger. We are finally airborne and crossing the vast plains of India in about three hours.

We land at the airport in New Delhi and all shove our way into the 35C (~ 95F) degree heat. We then stand, and stand, and stand, waiting for a bus to take us to the terminal. At least this time we do need the bus as the terminal is a long way off. It is really, really hot out. Everyone is pissed. A pile of nice Polish people are about to miss their connecting flight home. All around us stand security staff. One has an MP5 looking submachine gun with a massive banana clip. Another has some sort of short stock AK. They are keeping us from moving away from the plane simply by standing there and looking scary.

However, no one is keeping anyone away from the plane itself. People start crowding under the nose of the Airbus 320 to keep out of the sun. Keep in mind, if you were in a Western country, and took a step towards the plane with people with big, scary guns around, there would be a problem. A big problem, most likely solved rapidly and with some degree of force.

Are you an Indian government official worried about airport terrorist threats? Why not xray everything three times and check our boarding passes every twelve feet. But don't worry about the idiot with his hand inches away from the pilot tube (which measures airspeed), or the guy who is swinging his backpack within inches of the landing gear assembly. That's not a problem! Just let people touch the multi-million dollar aircraft - just as long as they have the right paperwork!.

After a while, the buses finally arrive, and we are brought inside the now quite nice Delhi airport. Our bags then actually arrive, and our pre-scheduled airport pickup is amazingly still waiting for us.

All in all, much better than a 48 hour train ride, but what a disaster, on countless levels.

-Jonathan