RTW Trip: Day 101-103 (6/4-6/6) - Mumbai

Day 101-103: Walking Up #18

*This and the following entry will be my last two detailing my RTW trip, which is somehow ending, despite it both feeling really, really long (I mean, it was effing Winter when I left the US) and really short (wasn’t it just two weeks ago when I was being given complimentary Sambuca for going to City Grill two nights in a row in Cape Town?). Since this one takes place in Mumbai, a city where I didn’t do much actual sightseeing apart from taking a launch ride out to the Elephanta Caves (probably worth it), it won’t be too long. I’ll probably have actual thoughts on the last part, which includes one more visit to Singapore and the longest flight sector of my entire trip (Singaopore to New York). That flight stops in Frankfurt for refueling, so the New York to Johannesburg flight will still be the longest individual flight I’ve taken. Still, there’s more to talk about there than writing about me going to Leopold for the umpteenth time.*

When I arrived in Mumbai, fresh off of my short flight on IndiGo, I was reminded one more time that Mumbai is a City, while Bangalore is an oversized town. Driving through Mumbai you get the feeling you are in a city. I certainly do, everytime we reach Marine Drive, which always looks better at night than it does during the day. I also remembered just how lucky I was with my timing for this trip. The air was extremely hot and humid, meaning one thing: Monsoon is Coming. Within three weeks, the sky will turn cloudy, and it won’t be blue for another two months. The specter of rain will hang over every day during that time. I just missed it. Of course, after my face sweating continuously while walking around Mumbai, I could’ve done with some of nature’s tears, but not having to deal with the mud and slop that arises during Monsoon season is still better than having to deal with the increased heat.

By the time I left Mumbai four nights later, entering my Tab Cab in front of the Esperance building, heading for the airport, I kind of felt like this was the end of something special, which it was. I was glad to have spent the last few days of my trip in Mumbai, just as I was glad to spend the last few days of the 1^st half of my trip, which I call the 3^rd World Half, on Mumbai. In a way, this trip was built on symmetry. The longest flight was the first. The second longest flight was the last. Each time I left India I went on the same flight, SQ423, to Singapore, and each time I had about a full day to wander around Singapore.

The similarities didn’t end there. Each time before that flight, I went to Leopold Café one last time. I’ll admit that I never went to Leopold Café before the terrorist attack, but why would I, since I couldn’t really enjoy Leopold Café in all its glory back in 2001. Leopold Café, I feel, is a little underrated as a place to eat. Sure, they’re known as an incredible people watching spot and a place to drink a tower of ice cold beer (as was Sports Bar Express, RIP), but I think their food gets a little but tossed aside. Their Chinese and Continental Food isn’t the best, but their Indian food is almost always good. I’ve had a few of their kebabs and a few of their curries, and they’ve all been good. Leopold Café may be famous because it was attacked, but it was attacked because it was already a famous spot, and for a reason.

I ventured out back to my old stomping grounds in Lower Parel as well. I met my friend back at The Blue Frog, a famous lounge with live music in Lower Parel. It’s tucked away on a street in the back and beyond of Lower Parel, and is very hard to find if you don’t know where it is. Last time, I didn’t really know where it was and it took me about 30 minutes in the Mumbai heat to walk up and down and find it. No such problems this time. Before The Blue Frog, we first went to Zaffran, a Mughlai restaurant on that same begotten alley. This one is closer to the main road, so if I knew it as a landmark last time it would have been so much easier to find The Blue Frog. The food at Zaffran was about as good as the décor, as we were seated on a circular table inside a hanging wooden swing (I’m not sure how to better describe it). Zaffran was good, and while there was no live music in Blue Frog that night, I finally had a place adhere to one of my music requests, which was a relief after being turned away at Man U. bar and Leopold’s upstairs.

My cousin Robin and I returned to Lower Parel the next night (my last true ‘night’ of the trip), this time going to The Irish House, an Irish-pub styled bar that played loud music and had a lively, jovial, young crowd. Robin and I did quite well that evening (probably a little too well), enjoying the moment, connecting for the last time during our trip and just enjoying what was going on. It was such a different experience than the previous night.

Power almost never goes out in Mumbai. It never goes out, another reason why Mumbai feels like a city whereas Bangalore feels like an oversized town. Of course, it did the night before, going off around 2 AM. Because the power never goes out in Mumbai, most buildings don’t have generators like they do in Bangalore, so we were screwed. My Aunt told us that likely it would only come back in the morning, which was basically a quasi-death sentence to me. Robin and I decided around 3 AM that we couldn’t take it anymore, and we went for a walk to the Taj. The Taj hotel, the more famous terrorist attack target, turned Robin and I away  when we tried to enter around 6 PM one day during my trip in 2011. We have no idea why, butt making up that another cousin of mine was staying there and having them call the fake room probably didn’t help (this happened after they turned us away originally).  We entered the Taj with no problem. I guess they don’t feel that terrorists arrive at 3AM.

One of their restaurants stays open 24 hours a day, so we headed there and tried to waste as much time as we could when splitting one $20 entrée. Soon, we got the fettuccini, which was as well made as I could have expected given the price and the place that we were eating in. There was, amazingly, one other British family there, and we soon decided that they must be staying at the Taj (unlike us) and had arrived in Mumbai earlier that night, and just gotten in and were hungry. It is this type of weird background stuff that we were doing to keep ourselves semi-awake a 3:30 AM. We finished our meal and briefly considered going to sleep in their foyer at a place where the people behind the desk had an obstructed view of us. We decided against that and returned back to Esperanca to brave the heat, and we did. Miraculously, around 4:45, the power came back, a gift from God. I had my best sleep ever in that apartment that night.

Going back to the night at The Irish House, we left around 1:45, after finishing what we ordered during their 1:30 last call. This is just another reason why I love Mumbai, because things don’t close early. Of course, they close early enough that we returned to Esperance in time to catch VH1 ZZZZ and have some last few Kingfishers from the shady Gokkul Wine Shop. I’ll remember The Irish House, and Leopold, and Zaffran, but for some reason, I’ll remember VH1 ZZZ… more than anything.

RTW Trip: Day 97-98 (5/31-6/1) - Coffee Estate

Day 97-98: Out in the Wilderness, One Last Time

These last few weeks of the trip include many different ‘lasts’. The last few flights, the last few beers to try, the last few nights away from my comfortable bed that is waiting for me at home. Well, in this spate of ‘lasts’ I was able to squeeze in a ‘first’. I have only once prior been to a Coffee Estate in India, the playgrounds of so many of my Mangalorean Ancestors and their contemporaries. I was five that last time, with little memory of the experience. When my cousin invited me to her friends Estate for a weekend getaway with her, her husband and a small group of their friends, I was excited.

To be honest, when I left Japan I had a terrible feeling of “Why am I going back to India, let’s just go home”-itis. Some of it may have been the fact that the plane opposite mine was heading to JFK. The other reason was that I was leaving my little 1^st-world, good weather haven of Japan for a hot, humid stay in India. After my experience in the estate, I’m glad I went back to India. That’s about as good of an endorsement as I can give it.

To be honest, there’s not too much I can legally say about what we did at the estate, so I’ll say all the legal things (and you can fill in the rest as imaginatively as you like). My cousin’s friend’s estate (to make that easier, let’s call her Aneesha, because that’s her name) is situated deep within the Chikmagalur. I’m not entirely sure what the name of her particular estate is, but it is located in the small estate town of Haribeil. We took a bus there, which was a journey all to itself. We weren’t able to get sleeper seats (basically beds) on the bus, but the seats recline quite a bit. The problem is I wasn’t used to attempting to get sleep around midnight, especially when seated upright. We all got very little sleep, and all arrived to the estate lodge around 6 AM, sleep deprived.

We tried to brave the situation and stay awake – there was even talk of going for a morning walk. Of course, none of that happened and we went to sleep for about three or four hours. When I got up, I was finally able to look around the lodge with my wits around me. The estate lodge is incredibly situated high above the coffee hills below, giving a great view of the rolling hills afar. It is hard for me to imagine that this sight, this sprawling canvas of green, was located in India, was located in the same country that I know for its never-ending traffic and pollution. The house itself had a more personal connection, as so much of it was familiar to that of my Grandmother’s house in Mangalore. With its high ceilings hanging over large rooms with large beds, and rustic furniture and the winding corridors at the back where the kitchen and barn and cabinet lay. It was all kind of familiar, though also kind of different, because the house is still active (Aneesha’s Brother and Father run the estate day-to-day), and it is set with all the modern trappings of satellite television and three fish tanks.

The house also served as a little farm. Aneesha has six dogs, all similar in color and breed, but with varying degrees of age and size. They were some of the most lovable, needy (in a good way), dogs I’ve ever seen. They also adorably loved to do exactly what the others do, so when we took walks with them, if one dog went over to inspect a plant or rock, they all followed right behind. The rest of the farm included two beautiful horses, both riding horses, a slew of chickens, ducks and turkeys, two cats and a cow or two (we couldn’t see the cow). This animal house (not to be confused with the movie we went some lengths to replicate with our weekend) also had a personal connection, as I remember being told that my Grandmother’s house in Mangalore also had a large amount of animals. No horses there, but they were replaced semi-ably by Pigs. The animals left the house in Mangalore long before I was born, but I can imagine they were very similar.

Despite there being a full service kitchen, we mainly nourished ourselves with the food that we brought to the estate in boxes. That itself was an ordeal, with the rain pounding the box as we left in Bangalore, and for some reason us putting the heavier cooler over the lighter box for the entire ride. But the food, and alcohol, managed to stay relatively well maintained, and the food was mostly good. In fact, the pork curry that my Cousin’s in-laws’ family cook made was among the best I’ve ever had. That and Aneesha’s Corn Bread was enough for me, both being among the top 20 or so things I’ve eaten on this trip.

The lodge is isolated in one little corner of her family’s estate, and while we didn’t venture out to every corner of that map, we did go for a drive or two down the hill. First was to the river, for dinner. Because we came a few weeks before the Monsoon Season started, the water in the river was brown and unswimmable, but the group of us sat on the rocks in the river, eating some snacks (while the pork waited for us back in the lodge, the lunch-lunch), which gave me another feeling of “am I still in India?”.

Our trip back up (this trip was done by jeep, which takes about 20-25 minutes to travel up the winding, bumpy roads built into the hills. Quite a bit of the bus trip to and from the estate was done on similar roads, which means two things: one, thank God we were asleep for that part of the trip, because it would be terrifying; and two, for once, the reason it takes eight hours to go 300 km has nothing to do with traffic. On the way back up to the lodge, my cousin’s husband, who operates his own family’s estate, wanted to see one of the offices. We stopped at one and he walked us through the different buildings in the office square, the machinery, the process and how it all ties together. It all seemed far too complex for me, as I would have never imagined the harvesting and processing of coffee beans to be that intricate, but that’s what the distance I am from the beginning product does to my perceptions.

Our other trip venturing outside the cozy, beautiful confines of the lodge was our group walk, which went down to their old manager’s house and another processing area, this one built onto the side of a hill. In front of us were hills upon rolling hills stretching far into the distance, with a series of ominous low clouds draping the tops of the hills. Above us was the hill we just trekked down (we didn’t start from the top), and the top quarter was fully cloud covered. We headed back up before it got too dark (which we didn’t really succeed with, given by the time we reached the lodge, we were walking in close to absolute darkness). We all settled in for the end of the second full day, and, sadly, my last.

My cousin first told me that the trip would be Friday to Sunday (or essentially, Friday Night to Monday Morning, factoring in night buses), to which I said I was uncomfortable with given my early Monday flight to Mumbai. She then switched the leaving date to Sunday afternoon, which meant that we were now leaving Thursday night. I still wasn’t comfortable with this because I didn’t like arriving Sunday night at my Uncle’s with just hours to do the calculus that is my suitcases and the luggage that has to go in them. In the end, I settled with taking a bus back alone on Saturday night, and while I needed that extra time in Bangalore to settle myself before the Long Haul started the next day, when it came close to the time for me to go with the driver to the bus stop, that little outpost in Haribeil, I was sad to be leaving this group of people, sure, but as sad to be leaving this place. I probably couldn’t live in an estate, but to visit, there are few better things I can imagine doing in India. It is so un-Indian. Of course, the irony is that the estate life is entrenched in my Indian Mangalorean Community’s history. I experienced part of that history, and I can’t wait to again.

Duncan > Kobe

*I wrote this a while ago, but wanted to wait to make sure that the Spurs made the finals before I did*

 

I’ve held firmly for quite a while that the best player of the past fifteen or so years in the NBA was Tim Duncan, not Kobe Bryant.*

*Of course, LeBron’s presence hangs over everything, but Duncan and Kobe were already solidly on a HOF-bound track before LeBron entered the league. Let’s pass over LeBron for being the best player of the post-Duncan and Kobe era*

Only one famous person of note agreed with me, Bill Simmons. Of course, he has no idea who I am, so it’s more that he too believes it more than he ‘agrees with me’. He had Tim Duncan rated one spot higher in his original Book of Basketball (Kobe at #8 and Duncan at #7), and he kept those rankings the same in the updated version for paperback. Recently, right before the start of the Western Conference Finals, he repeated his claim of Duncan’s superiority, and then even had a good debate on his podcast about it.* I want to lay out my case for why Duncan has had the better career and is the better historical player.

*-One last side note, I was talking here about Simmons' podcast with Joe House a few weeks ago. He's since basically brought this point up in every podcast of his since. This is the 2nd greatest recurring theme in the BS Report, after when he somehow, to my delight, managed to bring up Super Bowl XLII for about 10 straight podcasts after the game*

Argument #1: The Titles and the Help

One common defense for the Kobe supporters is that Kobe has five titles to Duncan’s four. Of course, that’s true, but then Robert Horry has seven titles. No one thinks he’s even a HOFer. To me, titles won doesn’t matter. What does is titles won as the best player on your team. One NBA player can have a bigger impact than one player in any other sport (with the possible exception of goalie in hockey). It’s simple math, there are only five players on the court at any time and they play offense and defense (unlike a QB in football). That’s why it was meaningful that LeBron hadn’t won a title until last year. So, how many times has Kobe been the best player on a title winning team. Two. Duncan’s been the best player on at least three, and you can make the argument for the fourth. Tony Parker may have won the Finals MVP in 2007, but Duncan was still the most important player. A similar case could be made for Gasol being the best performer in the 2010 Finals (and definitely in Game 7, where Kobe went 6-24), but Kobe was still the most important player. Either way, the count is 2-3, at best.

Kobe Bryant was definitely not the best player on the 2000-2002 Lakers title winning teams. Those were Shaq’s teams. They won because of Shaq. They dominated the 2001 playoffs because Shaq decided to finally give a shit that season after mailing in most of the regular season. They swept the Nets because Shaq abused Todd McCullogh. Shaq deservingly won the Finals MVP each time because he was the best player on those teams. Kobe had great years, but he was still the support. Teams were gameplanning to stop Shaq, and if that meant Kobe getting 30 every now and then, fine.

Duncan definitely had good players on his title winning teams, but he was definitely the best player on the first three, and probably the 2007 team as well. He’s played with one of the greats in David Robinson, but Robinson was the Kobe to Duncan’s Shaq in 1999 and Robinson was a glorified big-man-off-the-bench type in 2003. Actually, look at the 2003 Spurs roster for a second. That team had no right winning 60 games and a title. They had David Robinson who was aging. Terry Porter and Kevin Willis, who were beyond aging. Malik Rose and Anthony Johnson, who were basically role players. A not-as-cray-as-he-would-become Stephen Jackson, and the young duo of Parker and Ginobili. Those two bring up problems because Parker is a likely HOF, and if you factor in the international success of Ginobili on Argentina, he is too, but in 2003 they were basically first-year starters. Parker was so up and down there was serious talk of them getting Jason Kidd that offseason and replacing Parker. Parker and Ginobili’s best years have really been at the tail end of the Spurs title runs (2007) and since the last title when the Spurs shifted to a more offense-heavy approach. They are HOFers for the work they did after the Spurs stopped winning titles.

So, both played with HOFers, but out of the top-4 supporting cast, I would give Kobe the best support member in Shaq (who was actually the best player on those title teams), and Duncan had the relative worst in Ginobili. Parker vs. Gasol is interesting, but either way, Duncan never had a Shaq v.2000-2002 like figure to play with.

Argument 2: The Dominance

Another common defense is how dominant Kobe has been for such a long period. He was just 3^rd in the NBA in scoring this past season. People say that Kobe’s had the higher peak, the more dominant career. To that, I say that’s true if you are only considering their scoring value. Basketball is about a lot more than just scoring, but the number of points stands out more than anything else. Kobe supporters say that Duncan never had seasons like Kobe’s in 2006 (where he averaged 35, had the 81 point game),and while Kobe might have had a better peak, there are a lot of ways to measure players without simply looking at their PPG.  Tim Duncan did everything, and did it all well. If you want to go playoffs, just look at what Sir Duncan did in the 2003 Playoffs, again with a team whose roster really wasn’t all that good outside of Timmay. He started his run in Game 5 of the 2^nd round against the two-time defending champ Lakers, with the series tied at 2-2:

Game 5 vs LA: 27-14-5-1 (pts-reb-ast-blk), Spurs win  by 2
Game 6 vs LA: 37-16-4-2, win by 28

Game 1 vs DAL: 40-15-7-1, lose by 3
Game 2 vs DAL: 32-15-5-3, win by 13
Game 3 @ DAL: 34-24-6-6, win by 13
Game 4 @ DAL: 21-20-7-4, win by 7
Game 5 vs DAL: 23-15-6-1, lose by 12
Game 6 @ DAL: 18-11-4-3, win by 12

Game 1 vs NJN: 32-20-6-7, win by 12
Game 2 vs NJN: 19-12-3-3, lose by 2
Game 3 @ NJN: 21-16-7-3, win by 5
Game 4 @ NJN: 23-17-2-7, lose by 1
Game 5 @ NJN: 29-17-4-4, win by 10
Game 6 vs NJN: 21-20-10-8; win by 11.

So, to recap, that averages to this:

26.9-16.6-5.4-3.8 per game. 

Which is ridiculous. He had a  34-24-6-6 in game 3 against Dallas in the WCF, and that was his 4^th best game in that stretch (his epic Game 6 of the finals is probably his magnum opus, but Game 1 of the finals and Game 1 of the Conference Finals are about as good). The advanced stats of Duncan’s 2003 playoffs make that stretch one of the most dominant postseason of all time. It was like LeBron’s 35-8-8 postseason in 2008-09, except the Spurs won the title. Please, don’t tell me that Kobe was more dominant than Duncan at his best.

Argument 3: The Ridiculous Consistency

Duncan’s Spurs have only once not won 50 games. That’s because that season they only played 50 games. Of course, that year they went 37-13, tied for the best record in the NBA, which translated to a 61-21 record in an 82 game season. Even in the other strike-shortened season, where they played 66 games, the Spurs managed to win 50. The Spurs have gone, in Duncan’s career, gone:

1997-98: 56-26 (68.3%)
1998-99: 37-13 (74.0%)
1999-00: 53-29 (64.6%)
2000-01: 58-24 (70.7%)
2001-02: 58-24 (70.7%)
2002-03: 60-22 (73.2%)
2003-04: 57-27 (69.5%)
2004-05: 59-23 (72.0%)
2005-06: 63-19 (76.8%)
2006-07: 58-24 (70.7%)
2007-08: 56-26 (68.3%)
2008-09: 54-28 (65.9%)
2009-10: 50-32 (61.0%)
2010-11: 61-21 (74.4%)
2011-12: 50-16 (75.8%)
2012-13: 58-24 (70.7%)

Total: 830-368 (69.3%); 56.8-25.2

That’s kind of insane. Kobe, in the prime of his career, missed the playoffs once, finishing below .500 in 2004-05, and was the 7^th seed in 2005-06 and 2006-07. Kobe’s team may have made more finals, but they weren’t as relentlessly consistent. They didn’t make winning seem boringly efficient. They didn’t have the Spurs robotic existence. The Spurs also did this during the iso-era, the defense-heavy era, the offense-heavy era, and then the superteam era.

Duncan has had to battle injuries and, more importantly, battle reduced minutes and Popovich tried to keep him fresh, which puts his volume numbers down the last few years, but I love Bill Simmons’ point that his per-36 minutes stats are ridiculously consistent. Now, in Kobe’s defense his per-36 numbers are about the same as they’ve been throughout the past five or six years. But he’s fallen off from his ridiculous peak. Duncan’s fall is more just less minutes.

Conclusion

It isn’t clear-cut. My argument delves into areas I don’t like entering in other sports, namely  QB-wins in the NFL. But basketball players have a disproportionate impact on games. Singular NBA players are just more valuable than their counterparts in other sports. But, I think it comes down to the Shaq factor. Shaq was the primary force on the Lakers three-peat. Shaq is himself one of the 15-20 best players ever, and a healthy, motivated Shaq (like he was throughout 1999-2000 and became again in the 2000-01 playoffs) was even better than that. Kobe got to play with that. The best player Duncan got to play with was either Robinson in Duncan’s rookie season, or Parker in recent years. That doesn’t approach Shaq in his prime. Their careers are both winding down, and this debate will probably rage on for years. It doesn’t have the fire and intensity of Manning vs. Brady, but it really should.

RTW Trip: Day 94-96 & 99-100 (5/28-5/30 & 6/2-6/3) - Various Railyards and Tarmacs

Day 94-96 & 99-100*: Trains, Planes and Automobiles

*-The interior two days deserve their own post.

Tis a story about three trips, three flights, two bus rides, one train ride and more issues with luggage than anyone should have to face in their life.

Let’s go Chronologically, shall we:

Part I: The Train Ride

Tokyo Narita airport is not close to anything else in Tokyo’s city center. I’m still not quite sure if it is located to the North, South, East or West of Tokyo proper. Since cab rides are dangerously expensive in Tokyo (quick note – hint to Tokyo cab companies: more people would take your cabs if you reduced the fare, which is easily done if you stop mandating the drivers wear suits and the doors of the car be automatic), many people go to Narita by train. There are roughly thirty different train options to reach Narita, and I chose the Keisei Line Skyliner Express, with service to Narita (I’m not sure where the ‘Skyliner’ name comes from – the train only runs from Ueno to Narita). I got up early and took a cab to Nippori station and then waited for the Keisei Skyliner. I have no complaints at all with the train, which was, on the inside, as grand if not grander than any of the Shinkansen Bullet trains I took. Each seat had AC power. Each seat had AC (air conditioning). Each seat reclined a good deal. And this is all on a train where the maximum travel time in 45 minutes (Ueno station to Narita’s International Terminal 2). I left the train after a short sleep and walked into Narita Airport, sad to leave the cooler air of Narita and return to the heat and humidity of Southeast Asia.

Part II: Plane Flight #1 (Tokyo Narita and All Nippon Airways)

I already gave my praise for both Narita (which I named my 2^nd favorite International Airport – after Singapore Changi) and All Nippon (which I named my 5^th favorite International Airline). In that piece, I spoke more about generalities, while here I’ll go into a little more detail. Narita airport is really designed in an American style. Instead of giant, empty, hollow concourses and terminals, Narita’s are full, packed with rows of seats and shops and restaurants. There are no separate transit waiting rooms that lock you in a good thirty minutes before you board (something present in most airports I’ve been to in Asia). There was a nice bar which, because of the time, was mainly serving people breakfast, but also serving a ton of beer. The prices were more than reasonable for an airport bathroom, so how could I not take advantage. I had a ‘cream top’ beer, which may have even exceeded Asahi Black in my mind. It was supposedly not a craft beer, but I hadn’t seen it anywhere, much to my dismay. From my window table at the bar, I saw many planes fly off into the clear blue sky.

All Nippon Airways, unlike basically every airline in the world, allowed me to check in two suitcases, no questions asked, which after the debacle in Melbourne gave me so much glee. Of course, they’re changing this rule in another month or so and join the other cash-grabbing airlines in the 21^st Century. All Nippon has a modern fleet (no Airbus A380 – because they mainly stick to just airbus planes), but despite this being a high-quality route (Tokyo to Bangkok – the largest East-Asian economic center to the 5^th largest), but they chose to put an Boeing 767-300 on the route. Plane enthusiasts (like myself) know that this isn’t exactly a modern plane, but All Nippon, one of the best regarded airlines in the world, made the most of it.

They had small little TV screens (because the seats on that plane aren’t the biggest), but they were filled with a decent, if not large, selection of movies. Deciding to be brave, I chose the Japanese meal instead of the Western Meal, and while it wasn’t bad, it was decidedly Japanese, and not in the Sushi/Japanese Korean-BBQ way. I didn’t like traditional Japanese food apart from those two before, and I still don’t. They did have ice cold Asahi, and it was nice to have one more before I leave Japan. We arrived at the big house in Bangkok, where I would have to endure the most grating part of my trip, a 6-hour layover.

Part III: Plane Flight #2 (Bangkok Suvurnabhumi Airport, Thai Airways, Bengaluru International Airport)

The six hour layover in Bangkok wasn’t the longest I’ve ever had. I had an 8-hour layover in Hong Kong on a marathon trip to India in 2003 (New York to Vancouver to Hong Kong to Bangkok to Mumbai to Bangalore; total time = way too long to count without a calculator). There are few airport where I would take a six hour layover without any complaint, and Bangkok is not one of them. The one thing I take away from my six hours is I finally know how to pronounce Suvurnabhumi, but I would rather have six hours of my life back than knowing that random fact.

Bangkok’s airport, much like Hong Kong’s where I had to endure those eight hours, is giant, but soulless. All there is are long hallways with high walls and concrete all around you. There is a giant duty-free shopping area. It’s actually more apt to call it a mall, as it has any high-priced luxury brand store I could think of. The only problem is this mall is located above the gate area of the airport, in the area connecting one half of the airport to the other, stretching nearly a KM long. The restaurants are bunched to either end of this area. I had lunch here, with a nice Duck Red Curry, for what I thought was a reasonable price. Later in my six hours, I went to another restaurant and had two beers, for again what I thought was a reasonable price. It was only when I saw my bill that I realized that it wasn’t that reasonable of a price. When I went to Bangkok in 2003, the exchange rate, from what I remember, was about 40 baht for one dollar. When I went earlier this year, it was about 30 baht for one dollar. Of course, I decided to completely forget about the more recent rate and go with the old rate, so I ended up spending more than I wanted to.

The flight from Bangkok to Bangalore was OK, like most of my Thai Airways flights. The beer again wasn’t too cold (I don’t know why I just don’t ask for whiskey instead – something I assuredly will do at some point on my long haul home). The other problem was that they ran out of their meat dish right before they got to me. Actually, let me clarify, when I asked for the meat dish, the guy responded that they need to warm it up. He proceeded to serve meat to another few passengers and seemingly forgot about me. By the time they did, they ran out of the meat. The veg meal was decent, and the meat was just chicken, so I didn’t lose too much in the end. I watched some movie I now forget, slept for a bit, and arrived in Bangalore. The flight was a lot shorter than I expected, as Bangkok is a lot closer to Bangalore than I thought.

My final baggage experience was customs in Bangalore. First, it took the opposite of a New York Minute for my two bags to arrive. I often worry when I have a long layover if my bags will come. I was worried about my bags arriving in Melbourne after having almost the entire day in Singapore. Six hours isn’t really that long when compared to my time in Singapore, but this time I was changing airlines, which added another variable into the mix. Then, when exiting through customs I was asked to have my bags screened. I wondered why, but went along, because I had nothing to hide.

It turns out I did, as I was bringing in too much alcohol than what is legally allowed (or allowed without duty taxes, a theory I don’t understand fully). I had two bottles of wine and six small bottles of beer, which I guess is (well) over two litres. The customs guy told me I would be taxed a shit-load, but if I gave Rs. 1000, I could leave. I wasn’t quite sure if he was asking for a bribe right now, because he was doing it with all the subtlety of a baboon, but he was. When I loudly exclaimed that I would give him his 1,000, but I need to draw, he let me go. Although I had basically verbally out-ed his bribery, I was surprised how easily he let me go, but was grateful. I may experience a similar fate when I arrive in the US, but at least I know I won’t be given the option of a bribe, for better or for worse.

Part IV: Plane Flight #3 (luggage issues, mostly)

*-Quick note, I’ve decided to talk about the bus ride when I talk about the days in between, where the bus rides occurred. Mostly because a lot of what went on those few days aren’t really writable.

One of my favorite things in India used to be its domestic air travel. Jet Airways and the now defunct Indian Airlines used to serve meals on flights that lasted 90 minutes. Kingfisher did basically the same before Vijay Mallya incredibly poor management finally killed the airline (there’s a reason why you shouldn’t buy A380’s years before you get them when you only fly domestically). Now, with the expansion of the low-cost services of Indigo, SpiceJet and Go Air, that has all changed. Luggage restrictions have now reared their ugly head in India as well, with most airlines very recently reducing their free check baggage amount to 15 KGs. Luckily, I booked my ticket before the switch so I was entitled to 20 KGs free. Of course, I was bringing about 50 KGs, or 23 KGs extra.

Like most airlines, IndiGo lets you pre-book excess baggage, a fact which I hadn’t seen. Now, IndiGo went to great lengths to hide the fact that if you have a connecting International flight within 24 hours they let you take all the baggage the international flight is allowing (two suitcases of 23 kg’s). Of course, I am not taking an international flight within 24 hours, so the fact that they literally do not tell you that information anywhere on their website is meaningless. Anyway, they did say in their website that prebooked excess baggage is charged at a considerably lower rate, and they said it right before they said that excess baggage at the airport is charged at Rs. 250 / kg. Somehow, I missed the pre-book rate, and focused on that large, glaring, daunting Rs. 250 rate.

That led to a series of phone calls, research assignments given to my cousins in India, perilous hours deciding what clothes to throw onto the next poor lad to come from India to the US to bring for me, and the whole lot. In the end, I had whittled it down to either putting it on a bus for about 3,000 ruppees, or taking the 16 kgs to the airport, risking having to pay the 4,000 ruppees with the hope that I could finagle some business passenger without a checked bag to check it in for me. Because of my facial hair and long, unkempt hair on top of my head, this wasn’t very likely.

Then, my Uncle’s wife saw those pre-booked rates, and that opened up an entirely new cost-effective avenue. When we called the airline to try to pre-book baggage, Vishek (the man who answered the call) told us about the international connection rule after I tried to whine my way into a slightly more discounted discount than they were willing to give. Hearing this, I decided to pass the mic over to my Uncle’s wife to try to concoct some story about why I needed the three days in Mumbai, and try to guilt Vishek into giving me the international connection bonus. She wasn’t able to pull it off, which isn’t too surprising since I miss the 24-hour cutoff by about 60.

Anyway, that leads to the final bit of ridiculousness, the drive to the airport. We left a little later than I had wanted, and then I left my contacts behind. My Uncle noticed and phoned us to come back pretty soon, but the traffic in Bangalore was at its Bangalorean worst. Of course, the road to the airport is set up in a way where hitting 80 km is about impossible, making me really, truly feel like I was going to miss the flight. I was so sure that I was missing it that I even informed my Dad of my situation, basically ensuring a (mostly deserved) lecture. It was all for naught after I gave a little sob story to the girl behind the counter. For the second time at Bengaluru International Airport, I was ushered in a small car to the plane after the rest of the passengers had boarded by bus, only I was far from the last passenger. I’m not sure where these other people were, but it makes me feel better that I wasn’t even the fifth latest person to board that plane, and a little sad that I got so stressed out about my situation that I told the whole world. I made the plane, reached Mumbai and entered back home. The last four stops (including Bangalore) are true homecomings, but apart from the 18 hours in Singapore, to go to Mumbai before returning home is about as perfect as it gets.