A torrid time in the Air

My Journey this time was supposed to be like any other regular flight journeys back to home,but for the splendid (read as horrible) IC 686 and IC 169 flights.This was my 1st experience with Indian Airlines and hopefully will be last.

No pictures in this blog.. 'coz I don't trouble my lenses with horrific things.

IC 686 ( Muscat to Mumbai)
As I sit down and jot down the incident , I can clearly remember when I entered IC 686 and a dark skinned (not a racist comment) aged lady (around late 40s or early 50s) in a saree with a huge red bindi on her forehead, folds her hand saying Namaste welcomes you on board.
The 1st thing that came into my mind was, shouldn't I be touching her feet :P. ,then I thought.. damn was that the Air Hostess( I always liked the pretty young ladies in Kingfisher,Jet,Spice,Oman Air,Emirates etc and still prefer the same way how an Air Hostess should be).

Suddenly my thoughts were disturbed by the hot blast of stinky air inside the flight. Whoa !! what was that ?? I looked around and felt I was in a 2nd class compartment of some train.I sat down and as I saw people around me  fighting to keep their things in the overhead cabins , damn who allowed them to carry so much luggage as cabin baggage ? Do these airlines have some kind of a deal ? - The part of the deal writes Indian Airlines only carries  mechanics/painters/carpenters who can't even fill their immigration forms.

"The Air(g)hostess" (this time a young lady) comes and asks in a heavy rude tone " Aap ko kya chahiye " (what do you want ).Nothing M'am was about to come out of my ventricle , when I managed to say " whiskey " she handed over to miniature bottles of whiskey and buried the glass in some container and came out with some ice. and handed over the glass to me. I took the glass and was wondering .. damn did i ask
 "Gola Chusky" (crushed ice candy).

Slowly I sipped my whiskey and was watching an old hindi movie. Yes they only play OLD HINDI MOVIES !! and was interrupted by a guy sitting next to me , asking me to fill his immigration form.As I grabbed the pen to do so.. I observed 3 other men holding their forms were looking at me waiting for me to finish the 1st form. I thought if I do that ... by the time we land I would still have at least 30 more forms in my hand to complete. I explained them I cannot fill as I was not aware of their visa status so any wrong entry could be a problem.

3 tormenting hours of flight was over and I waited for the next flight IC 169 in Mumbai , which was supposed to fly in another 5 hours from Mumbai to Bhubaneswar.

I dozed off at the waiting hall near the departure gate and I woke up suddenly and saw 7 beautiful young women(who apparently were wearing dark shades inside the room) walking towards me.I was just smiling at myself assuming that to be a dream, and next I see an old man with a cowboy hat shouts "common girls grab something to eat , I don't want my models to starve ".
Gosh I was awake and they were some models from some agency.

IC 169


IC 169 was supposed to fly at 10:25 IST from Mumbai to Bhubaneswar , till 10:35 there was no announcement and the schedule still showed 10:25 departure. what was going on ? I asked the airport authorities and they were clueless too. No one was there at the departure gate from Indian Airlines. I waited as we wait for a bus to arrive at some bus stop.The gate opens at 11 am and yes our (Air)bus had arrived.

We boarded and announcement says " We will be flying to Raipur " I was startled aren't we supposed to be flying to Bhubaneswar I asked the guy next to me and checked my boarding pass to confirm if it was IC 169.

Yes he said , but via Raipur . This is how this flight goes. Mumbai to Raipur and then to Bhubaneswar and from Bhubaneswar again to some other place.Damn Railway Ministry will be cursing them for stealing their ideas.
We stopped at Raipur for around 40 mins, police came for security check and baggage count, others came for head count... and I was only eligible for minutes count. I closed my eyes and fell asleep and woke up at Bhubaneswar. Got down from the plane and as I was walking towards the arrival gate,I looked back at the Airbus once more and cursed IA.

Mysterious Salalah

Salalah is Oman's second largest city. It probably has the most favoured location in the Arabian Peninsula,where you can experience light drizzles, mist covered mountains and palm-fringed  white sandy beaches, with the green Dhofar Mountains.

Muscat to salalah : Road Trip Trivia

Distance 1019 kms
Gas Filling Stations are far flung (Advisable to top up your petrol tank wherever you find a gas filling station)
You might encounter desert storms and camels rushing from either sides of the road , which are flanked by vast deserts.


Trip Plan:
Duration : 3 days
Expense : Petrol is cheap,Company's place to live and food.. we'll we are beasts sometimes [:)]
Places to visit :Mirbat,Taqa,Gravity Point,Wadi Darbat,Mugsail beach, Yemen border,Ayn Razaat
Mode of Travel : Car and Bus

Day 1: Muscat to Salalah
After office we rushed to catch the bus around 6 pm.which had no leg room and somehow I felt the seats were designed for school kids... we struggled to find places to rest our shoulders but the excitement and the company was there to ignore that.


Day 2: 1st Day at Salalah - 5:00 AM
We came out of the bus and "sudden shiver" was the first feeling, especially when you are used to the hot dry weather in the gulf region.It was drizzling and roads wore a cover of fog.

A small rest to straighten our backs and we left for breakfast.
Udipi Restaurant at 23rd July Street is a place with good food and hostile(yes this is not a typo , i did mean hostile not hospitable) service.

--- Trip to Mirbat : Mirbat (70 KM from Salalah) is a beautiful place with a beautiful beach , but do not attempt to swim as the underwater current can be hazardous.

--- Trip to Taqa : Taqa (35 KM from Salalah)
                                              The Haffa Palace on the way to beach

--- Anti Gravity Point : While coming back from Mirbat to Salalah, the drive through the mountains was a breathtaking experience.

We had heard about the Anti-Gravity point and we all were excited to experience this phenomena which defied laws which we studied all this years in Physics.

We finally reached the Anti Gravity Spot and we carried out a small drill to verify the tale.
We switched off the engine of the car and Gosh... we still were moving up the hill.

After that we happily moved back to Salalah, it was dark and drizzling and suddenly someone said " Guys let's drive up the mountain that leads to Job's Tomb ". We all stared at each other as we had a Mitsubishi Lancer(Manual) and the road had steep slopes and had become slippery ..thanks to the rain.

Reluctant(and scared) but we all decided to go ahead.The roads had near ZERO visibility and drizzle made it worse to add to the woes.. the Arabs with 4WDs were zipping from the mountain top with fog lights on.Somehow we reached and point(not at the peak) and decided it was unsafe to go ahead without a 4WD.
The drizzle,the fog and chilled winds squeezed out the kids within us.. jumping around,taking snaps.

Day 3: 2nd Day at Salalah
The agenda for the day (yeah as we normally speak in office and it had traversed back into our lives !!) was ... well we were techie-tramps anyways , NO AGENDA this time and all we needed to do was switch on the Engine and GPS and " follow the course of the road".

---Trip to Mugsail:

mugsail beach

We headed for Mugsail beach, which reveals a violent sea lashing onto the rocks and the water pumping out of the sink holes and roaring like an anaconda.The caves, the fog covered rocky shores are things to experience.

rocky shores of mugsail beach

---Trip to Yemen Border:
After Mugsail beach we left for the Yemen Border  which people say is a breathtaking view from the top..We came across heavy artillery guns but polite army personnel who stopped us at the check posts which is regular activity around the border area. Unfortunately we couldn't see much as the fog cover was too thick,but the drive was certainly amazing.


Day 4: Leaving Salalah 5:00 am
As planned we had to start off early and reach Muscat by late afternoon.Wwe were all set to hit the roads... 1019 Kms drive through the desert flanked roads...  but before that we had to cross the foggy mountains of  Tumrait.

Around 10 am , after 5 hours of drive , we had almost covered 600 kms .. so in short avg speed was 120 kms/hr. We were upto upto something... yes!!!  we were trying to touch the MAX SPEED on the open highway. We finally managed to touch 180 kms/hr on the odometer.

180 kms/hr

Happy and content with what we achieved... we settled down for some music,talked for a while and clicking anything that came our way.Suddenly we realized we were in the middle of a desert sand storm, we hardly managed to drive at 40kms/hr and we realized the temperature inside was rising.The temperature inside the car was around 21 deg and slowly it was rising to 32 deg.

a desert storm

By 2 pm we were in Nizwa , which means we should be reaching Muscat in another 2-3 hours.We had lunch at a food joint.We finally reached Muscat at 4 pm.9 hours drive and hot desert storm had the obvious effect.