Flights on Thursday were cancelled again. Same line: "Low clouds and poor visibility." Far more unrest with the passengers this time, however. Through them I believe an alternate story may be more accurate.
Kingfisher Airlines (who also happens to own one of the major beer companies in India - conveniently sharing a name) is going through bankruptcy at the moment. When there aren't enough seats sold, the plane is simply allocated somewhere else. This means that we've spent the previous two days sitting in an airport waiting for a flight that was never going to fly.
Another call to Bela, the CCS administrator, another taxi ride back to CCS home base, and now an overnight taxi has been set up for the two of us. Vicky, our guy from the first night, will be accompanying us as he'll be helping run the program in Dharamsala provided we ever end up arriving there.
In the process of reclaiming our luggage and canceling our tickets (again) we met two young women in the same boat as us. The first woman, heading to Dharamsala to study Tibetan, is originally from Germany. The second is from Chennai in India and had plans of visiting a friend. The two met while waiting, and now have met us, and our seeking our assistance. We've offered Bela's assistance to them, who kindly booked them a taxi of their own to follow ours through the night.
The taxi was a experience - superior to flying. Ten and a half hours overnight past trucks, buses, motorcycles, horse drawn carts, cows... I really can't get over the diversity of things on the road. The actual drive was done primarily in the dark, so we couldn't see much, but based on the frequent brakes slamming and general overall speed, there were a lot of other things in the road in front of us. And of course there was the road itself. We'd be cruising along when suddenly I'd be jolted from my light sleep as the driver was slowing down as a section of the pavement would be missing for a couple hundred yards. We'd clear that and speeds would increase again.
Every hour or two we'd pull over at a roadside tea house called a dhaba. A set of about five propane burners topped with large steel pots would house hot chai (chai means tea so chai tea is redundant). The owner of the dhaba would awaken from his sleep in a chair nearby and serve us and anyone else passing by a cup of delicious, spiced chai and we'd be on our way. This proved to be a wonderful way to keep our driver of the evening awake and alert.
Around five in the morning the sky began to brighten revealing the lowest of the Himalayas. We stopped next to a Hindu temple for the drivers to take half hour power naps. As morning prayers began inside we sat overlooking the mountains. Monkeys leaped from tree to tree as the sun climbed above the mountains. Our drivers awoke and the journey continued. Two hours later we were there - Dharamsala at last.
Kingfisher Airlines (who also happens to own one of the major beer companies in India - conveniently sharing a name) is going through bankruptcy at the moment. When there aren't enough seats sold, the plane is simply allocated somewhere else. This means that we've spent the previous two days sitting in an airport waiting for a flight that was never going to fly.
Another call to Bela, the CCS administrator, another taxi ride back to CCS home base, and now an overnight taxi has been set up for the two of us. Vicky, our guy from the first night, will be accompanying us as he'll be helping run the program in Dharamsala provided we ever end up arriving there.
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| Another cancelled flight. At least they treat the monks the same way... |
In the process of reclaiming our luggage and canceling our tickets (again) we met two young women in the same boat as us. The first woman, heading to Dharamsala to study Tibetan, is originally from Germany. The second is from Chennai in India and had plans of visiting a friend. The two met while waiting, and now have met us, and our seeking our assistance. We've offered Bela's assistance to them, who kindly booked them a taxi of their own to follow ours through the night.
The taxi was a experience - superior to flying. Ten and a half hours overnight past trucks, buses, motorcycles, horse drawn carts, cows... I really can't get over the diversity of things on the road. The actual drive was done primarily in the dark, so we couldn't see much, but based on the frequent brakes slamming and general overall speed, there were a lot of other things in the road in front of us. And of course there was the road itself. We'd be cruising along when suddenly I'd be jolted from my light sleep as the driver was slowing down as a section of the pavement would be missing for a couple hundred yards. We'd clear that and speeds would increase again.
Every hour or two we'd pull over at a roadside tea house called a dhaba. A set of about five propane burners topped with large steel pots would house hot chai (chai means tea so chai tea is redundant). The owner of the dhaba would awaken from his sleep in a chair nearby and serve us and anyone else passing by a cup of delicious, spiced chai and we'd be on our way. This proved to be a wonderful way to keep our driver of the evening awake and alert.
Around five in the morning the sky began to brighten revealing the lowest of the Himalayas. We stopped next to a Hindu temple for the drivers to take half hour power naps. As morning prayers began inside we sat overlooking the mountains. Monkeys leaped from tree to tree as the sun climbed above the mountains. Our drivers awoke and the journey continued. Two hours later we were there - Dharamsala at last.
