Stories from Bhutan - The Land of the Thunder Dragon, Sikkim and Meghalaya
Personnages Principaux
Raghavan Aravamudhan, Hari Suman Naik and Sathyanarayanan Chandrasekar
Day 0
Starting Location – Bilekahalli.
Sleepless night. Fear of oversleeping. 5AM Wakeup calls to others. Cold Coffee at Java Green. 6:15 AM. Hari Joins in. Run towards Apollo Hospital Bus Stop on Bannerghatta Road. No Sign of the Airport Bus. Climbed onto one of those blue city buses. Got down at Mandovi Motors. Magically an Airport Volvo bus appears. “Auspicious Start” – We tell ourselves. Debate about B school and value adds. Argumentative Indians indeed. Reach Bengaluru International Airport(BIAL) well on time.
Character 1 – Sajit from Spice Jet Reminded us so much about good friend Tony Thampan. Friendly guy. Walked back across the CRPF gunmen and got us 3 subway veggie delight sandwiches. Airport food is prohibitively expensive. You are better of purchasing food from outside the airport. INR 75 for Idly doesnt do much good. Leisurely chat for 15-20 minutes. Wondered if Spice Jet paid him for that chat. Valuable insights into Aircraft security and passenger screening.
Spotted senior(alum) going on one of those flights to “client locations”. Das(Guwahati) and Saikat(Kolkatta) to give us company on the flight. Spice Jet flight 528 – Bangalore to Guwahati via Kolkatta. Packed like poultry. Caught up on much needed sleep. Uncomfortable. 3:00 PM. Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport – Guwahati. Dry and Hot. City seems dirty. Shared taxi to the Railway station with Das. City filled with petrol stations. IOCL, NRL, Assam Oil. Glimpse of Bhupen Hazarika and Baichung Bhutia. One advertising for Tor Steel rods and another for a brand of via China Television sets.
Character 2 – Unknown Cab Driver Doped on cheap grass(Our Speculation). Mistook Maruti 800 for a Go-Kart. Couple of near miss situations. Lacked sense of distance and direction to say the least.
Back on the road. City surprises you quite a bit. Paan Bazaar is the biggest book market and not of betel leaves! Railway Station. Armed forces all around. Pretty unnerving rather than re-assuring. Railway Reservation Counter. Queues. Men all around. Wondered where the women were. One exceptionally long queue. Realized the reason. Pretty young lady behind the computer on that queue. Smiles.
Guwahati Railway Station. Quite clean. IRCTC Jantaa Ahaar. Nice concept. Reasonably hygienic and low priced food. Gorged on Dhal, Curry and Rice. Curd missing. 6:30PM. Guwahati Jhajha express. To disembark at New Jalpaiguri. Empty train. Moved over to a cleaner compartment. Reasonably comfortable except for the mosquitoes torturing Hari. Sleep interrupted by TTE appearing with his side kick/assistant/apprentice(summer intern?). Friendly people. Funny accent though. EOD.
Progress:
Bilekahalli –> BIAL –> Guwahati –> New Jalpaiguri
