The Amazing Race home edition

I can breathe now, so I can tell you this story - finally - happily relaxing in the second floor bedroom-now-office of our gigantic airy Kathmandu house...

Have you ever watched The Amazing Race? I never had before I lived in Bangalore but with nothing much better to do some afternoons I quickly became addicted. It was the one show that could make me cry, oddly enough - from the excitement of watching people flit about the globe in a panic I would well up with totally spontaneous tears. Not full fledged crying, mind you...but the sort of being overrun with emotion that will tend to affect a girl once a month or so for no other obvious reason than she's losing yet another egg to posterity. Except this show, with it's desperate conversations at airline counters and frustrated negotiations with foreign taxi drivers just really brought it out for me no matter when. Bizarre, I know. In any case, I've thought often about how fun it would be to take part in the show and really kick some *ss when it comes to getting around on limited cash and language skills. And as it always seems wont to do (making my wishes reality), the universe ponied up a mini-version just for us just this past week as we prepared to leave India in favor of Nepal.

We'd been through Delhi to Kathmandu before and were very much aware of how insanely long it can take to get from the domestic airport to the international version in the city of wall to wall heat, traffic, and people and so this time we wisely booked a ticket that would allow us a three hour layover in Delhi - giving us time to clear customs with Mooshy and get from one flight to the next with as little stress as possible.
Well, I couldn't have known it when I woke up at four thirty a.m. so that we could have a leisurely final departure from our Bangalore house - but The Amazing Race home edition was on.

We were greeted first thing in the morning at the Air Sahara counter with a slap to the bankbook, having to pay an extra $250 U.S. for our exceptionally heavy baggage at check in (dog included) but took it in stride and went to sit in the lounge for the sixty minutes until our flight was intended to depart Bangalore.

Air Sahara had recently become our favorite choice in airlines for their excellent business class accomodations (I will never return to coach for as long as I live) and their assurances that Mooshy would be handled with care and caution. The thing we didn't yet know about this particular carrier is that they are famous for being late.
Our sixty minute wait turned into three hours altogether and when we finally boarded the plane we just knew we were in for trouble at Delhi, with an estimated one hour and fifteen minutes remaining to collect our baggage, the dog, get through customs, book a taxi with room for the three of us and all our stuff, and get to the Indira Gandhi International airport my stomach started churning in anxious anticipation, but we sat back and pretended it would be just fine - I mean what can you do about much of anything at thirty thousand feet anyway?

Arriving in Delhi a full two and a half hours later than planned Hamid waited for our bags and the dog while I went in search of the Air Sahara floor manager who was conspicuously absent from his assigned post.
A silent row of six or seven of our cotravellers who had or were about to miss connecting flights sat patiently near the empty kiosk while I tromped around looking for someone to fulfill the promise our cabin crew had given of 'personal attention to this matter once you've landed.'
Finding an Air Sahara rep took some asking around, and when he finally, sheepishly showed his face I knew I would either have to cow to this mess and spend another night in India (not an option, no way, no how) or break out the vocals in favor of getting some business done.

I chose the latter and within fifteen minutes we were equipped with a ready taxi, paid for by the airline and set on speed-racer to deliver us through the 120 degree heat to a waiting crew of four Air Sahara employees at the second airport who then personally walked us through security and customs in about ten minutes.
The best part? Because they'd kept us so long in both cases there was no time to weigh (and therefore charge us for) our overly stuffed luggage on the second flight so we ended up not having to pay the $250 in fees a second time.
Sinking into the cool, wide business class seats with freshly prepared, sweet-salted-lime juice in hand we wiped the sweat from our respective brows and sat back for the final one hour and fifteen minute flight to Kathmandu with a huge sigh of relief.

I guess, in the telling of it, it loses some of the urgency and I'm lazy to type in the millions of details (like that when we first got off the plane in Delhi we were literally passed from one grounds crewman to the next - you could just see in their faces that they had no policy at all for handling such a botched job and were looking only to move us on and out in a 'better him than me' kind of passing the buck, so that eventually we'd have to harass someone else over our increasingly emergent situation. Or, how the six or seven people who had previously been sitting so politely just waiting for someone to help them get to their connecting flights on time, actually got to where they needed to go because we did make some noise...otherwise, I imagine they'd still be sitting there clutching their carry-ons, waiting...)

So, we made it. We stepped off the plane into the blissfully cool sunshiney Kathmandu air and everything has been lovely ever since. We made it to the pit stop, not quite fresh faced, but most definitely in first place and although there was no TV crew to document our triumph we're quite pleased with ourselves over the whole affair anyhow.
And that $250 we didn't have to pay Air Sahara in the turmoil of our very late arrival, that's gone to furnishing the new house a bit - so there was even a little cash prize to be had, just like on the TV version.