Tiring Travel….

Last week was a almost like roller-coaster ride. There were many things happening , some were making me happy, some were making me upset. You can imagine from this that the day I landed in my hotel, it had its broadband stopped and the irony was, they were having two connections and both stopped on the same day. I was told that all would be fine in a day only but it took them 3 days to finally sort it and then too, it did work only for 1 day properly. On 4th day, it was again not working and when on the final day of my stay, it did work too, I didn’t need it much anyways since there was a specific reason that I wanted internet so much in this week. I don’t lose my calm soon but I hate it when someone tries to give me a complete nonsense like my hotel guys were doing when I was asking them about the internet thing. If the same had happened in my home, I would had made sure that within 24 hours, it is resolved and that’s exactly the time which the company promises to fix issues, whose internet me and that hotel , both are using. So how come for a home user they would honor the promise but for a commercial user, they won’t? That’s just plain stupidity to tell that none is picking calls to register complaint or there is technician on the way but hasn’t reached even till 8pm when he was supposed to reach by 11.30am! I am nice but that doesn’t mean that I shall buy any and every stupid excuse. I had a BIG argument with the manager and I told him that if that’s the level of handling complaints, I shall probably not stay here from next time. I can handle things not getting sorted but at least give me a relevant excuse. If you would tell me that internet from the company has stopped and our LAN has also stopped working so we shall fix that first, being an IT guy (and a very deep IT guy) , I shall surely ask what’s wrong in your LAN and how did you figure it out in the first place? And then you don’t pick my call even when you know its me and why I am calling? I happen to know the owner of the hotel personally and that’s what the last I said that I don’t want to do this but I think, I need to make him aware what’s going on here and mind it, I was not just threatening. Its not my nature to do so , I was really really intended to do it when I said I shall do it. I don’t know whether that triggered an action but things did work out after that. I did meet the owner before I left and he was really feeling very sorry because it wasn’t just me but all the customers who were facing trouble. He told me that hotel staff never even told him that such kind of issue has come, to which I said that I was going to tell you but next day itself, it did get sort out so I didn’t call you. Anyways, it worked for me a day only and I must say, I was really happy on that day. It was a real bad experience and I just hope it won’t get repeated again.

In the work, things were okay. There was a trouble with some machines initially and there was some delegates who were taking a long time to understand things but other than that, things were manageable. On Friday, I was not well at all and was just wishing that I could cancel the session. But somehow, I did manage to finish the day on a good note and all the guys were happy. Few took me to a cup of coffee as well for which I am just really thankful to them.  Thanks so much guys for all the support and kind words. It was a great time spent and yes, I do remember that I have to reply to your emails and I shall do that as soon as I shall be back into my senses which are not really very in a stable state at the moment.

OKay, so I ranted about hotel , mentioned about session, what’s left? Aah yes, my yesterday’s travel which at one time, appeared to be a never-ending one. I normally take a return flight on Friday night but thanks to ever-increasing flight costs, I was told that this is not possible and I must stay at hotel for an additional night and take the flight on Saturday morning. I wish I could be happy about it but there wasn’t any. But I had no choice except saying “yes” and so I did too. I was given choice between flights at 6:30 and 9:00am. I thought it would be a little too early to travel at 6:30 ( stupid decision and silly me to think like that), why not sleep for some time and take the 9o’clock flight. I didn’t think ( may be was not in the right state of mind at that time) that even if I would have to take 9am flight, I would need to wake up early( it became really early eventually) so I could wake up some time more earlier than that too. But my mind was somewhere else and was thinking about some other things, I thought to give a go for 9am timing. It takes about an hour to reach airport, even when there is no traffic and its mandatory to reach at least 45 minutes before the flight time as the gates get closed after that time, its always good to reach at least 2 hours before the scheduled time. This means, I have to be at airport at 7am or may be at 7:30am and that means, I must start not more than 6:30am and that means, I must settle my bills and all before that, not to mention my bath and other things. Well, I woke up at 4am! Yeah, its early. Actually I woke up the previous night also at 4am but that was for a different reason. Anyways, I woke up at 4am, got ready right on time ( just for the record and if you don’t know it already, I hate to be late) and I was waiting for my cab which I asked to come by 6am. Even when I explained to the cab driver where to reach with all the necessary details and all, he still missed it and went somewhere else. Since I don’t speak the local language which was Kannada ( language for the state Karnataka ) , I made him talk to hotel lady. She explained to him where to reach and I don’t know what else they were talking about for 15 minutes on a call which was made from my phone but anyways, she did explain and I believe , he did understand too because he arrived soon after the call finished. So we started by 6:20am for the airport. I didn’t sleep so well the other night and not so much on the same night too and there was a severe headache and eyes were burning like anything too, I fell asleep. We reached airport on time. Since I was going to get breakfast in the flight ( which is not good at all in the taste but still, its there) , I didn’t carry much cash with me but just enough to get the cab once I shall land and then to take the bus. After some 30 minutes, I came to know that the flight is delayed. I was thinking for some time that whether I should eat anything out of the OVER-PRICED things available from the airport given that I had a very limited cash. Then finally, I went ahead and bought a (overpriced) burger and coffee and paid from my credit card. It didn’t cost an arm and leg but it was still so much high and I am sure, I would  never see such pricing on a normal outlet for a cold burger and half-warm coffee. Anyways I did have just in case that the flight would get more delayed, I can survive. Fortunately, flight didn’t get more delayed ( it was already delayed by more than an hour). As I said , breakfast in the flight was there and was really bad. The in-flight entertainment system had nothing new. I had already seen both the movies , did watch all the talk shows and also have heard the songs too before. May be its not the fault of airline as they refresh the content I guess after a month but its me only who is travelling more faster than they update their content. Finally we landed and this time, the flight did land on the new international airport. It was my first time to see it so I was a little excited and I wasn’t really disappointed when I finally had a look. Its indeed capable to beat any other country’s airport really bad ( it has already beaten most. Its the 6th largest one in the world) and is very well maintained. My only issue with it ( so far) is that it took really really long time for my bag to arrive. But if I think about it a little more closely, there were three flights whose luggage was supposed to arrive on the same belt and this can cause delay assuming which flight arrived sooner than the other. Anyways, after waiting for almost half an hour, I got my luggage, took the cab and went towards bus stand. I don’t know what was happening yesterday but there was a HUGE traffic jam just about on every road where my cab was going  (and later, where my bus was going) . It took me two hours to reach bus stand. I got the bus on time and I got a bus which normally is driven very fast so I thought, all is not so bad and I shall reach home on time. But unfortunately, it was just too good to be happening for not one but two reasons. One, there was a HUGE jam just about everywhere. I did get to hear from the airport when I took my cab that “wow, very nice name, Aman” from the cab booking person but I didn’t imagine that people would drive in front of my bus and cab too to have one look of me :) . Okay okay, I guess I am definitely speaking nonsense but still, there was a lot of traffic blocks everywhere. The second reason, which if wasn’t there, could have made some difference was that the bus driver was driving bus like he brought us for a city tour and wanted to ensure that we get a look on each and every shop, street, malls, heck even of the people who were walking on the road. To sum up, he was driving super slow. It takes normally about 6 hours but thanks to both the reasons, yesterday it took  nearly 9. I was sitting completely quite and didn’t even sleep for a minute. The only meal which I had was on the airport, that burger and in the flight, a kid patties. I had bought  a pack of chips which when I tried to open, got opened from the bottom resulting in all the chips kissing the bus’s floor and me looking at them with so much of anger in my eyes. I had a water bottle which I didn’t open in the entire travel and brought it sealed , just as it was given to me by the shopkeeper to home. I did do one good thing that I wore a woolen shirt thinking that it would be cold on the way and because I would be in a bus and it did prove to be right. The only good thing which did happen in the entire 9 hours that I got few texts which brought smile on the face, that’s all. 

So I am having some free time with me and I shall be spending it to do some reading of my Oracle related stuff in this time and also, I would go for some shopping.  I am still not very much over from the yesterday’s almost 20hours of tiredness so Oracle stuff would be happening some time next week. I shall do something which I can only do when I am at home and about which no one else knows. What? Well, if you don’t know it, you are surely not that “one” person and that means, I am not telling you :) .