I went on a 5 day trip to Chennai. Since the trip was adhoc, I did not have any booking done for the travel.

So, I decided to do the college way. When I was in college, if I decided to go home, I would go to the bus-stand and take a bus to the next nearest town. I used to travel from Ramanathapuram Trichy (my home until 2003, until we decided to move back to Chennai). From Ramathapuram, I would go to Paramakudi, then to Sivagangai, then to Thirupathur, then to Pudhukotai and then finally Trichy.

Likewise, I took a flight from Dubai to Bahrain. Bahrain to Mumbai. So, I got out of the International Terminal, went straight to Joe’s house and freshed myself up. Then Joe dropped me off at the domestic terminal. Now, Mumbai airport is prettly confusingly designed. There were 3 domestic terminals. Each terminal had 3 or 4 airlines. I went to the first terminal and asked Kingfisher airlines.

“Do you have a ticket to Chennai?”. “Sorry Sir, No.” came the reply.

Now, Terminal 1 had Kingfisher Airlines, Spice Jet Airline & JetLite Air. Terminal 2 had Indian Airlines, Jet Air & Sahara Air. Terminal 3 had Air Deccan, Indigo Air, GoIn Air (!!).

Each Terminal were like 200m apart. I literally had to walk each counter and each terminal until I made it to Terminal 3 to Indigo Air when they said, that they had a flight at 1 PM and would reach Chennai by 4 PM and it was via Bangalore. I took it, since all the other airlines flew Chennai only after 7 PM. I wonder why they can’t have a counter like Railways. “Any Train, Any Class”.

When I landed in Bangalore at around 3 PM, I had to change flight. I got out of the plane exploring the “ALL NEW AIRPORT - BIAL”. I had some intermediate work in Bangalore at my development office. I was planning to go there some time after my work in Chennai was complete. Now that I was in Bangalore, I thought I might as well cancel the trip to Chennai and get into Bangalore and finish the work and go home.

I went to the Indigo Air counter and asked the lady how much the refund would be if I cancelled the trip to Chennai. It was 900 Rs.

However, I did not want to take a chance with the new airport. So, with out canceling the ticket, I went out of the airport and called a taxi.

I asked taxi driver “Koramangala, how much?”

Taxi driver “Please take pre-paid voucher”.

I went to the pre-paid “Koramangala.”

Counter Clerk “from here it is 1000 Rs (accent car). And sir, you have to wait. Traffic inside the city. The cars are yet to come. It might take an hour for us to get you a taxi.”

“What….?”

I told the counter clerk “from here, Chennai is 900 Rs. and takes 40 minutes.”

I took the flight to Chennai. Whatelse!