Back to India – Nomad70plus

Got up at 6 AM for my morning flight to Kochi via Chennai with IndiGo. I had intended to just take a tuktuk to the airport, they wanted about 1500-2500 LKR for the ride. On a whim just before walking out I checked Uber, and they offered a ride for 938 LKR in a Micro Panda, with pickup in two minutes. Curious about what a Micro Panda could be I chose this alternative. It turned out to be just a very small car, but still more comfortable than a tuktuk. A good start to the morning.

At the airport you had to X-ray your bags to get in to the terminal, as usual. I tossed my bags, complete with laptop, camera, and water bottle inside on the conveyor, and put only my phone in a separate bin. Kept my watch on. Everything went through with no questions.

Checkin was smooth, as was emigration. I now expected the real security check, but there was none. That first one was it. Very lax.

Breakfast prices were ludicrous, but I had a cappuccino and butter croissant anyway, since I had some Sri Lankan currency left. This turned out to be a good decision since I would get no more food until the evening.

As I rechecked my boarding passes, it turns out they had put me on a later flight from Chennai to Kochi. Instead of my original 1.05 PM flight they had moved me to 7.30 PM, a 9 hour layover, without telling me. And there is no IndiGo service desk past immigration.

At the gate they could do nothing, but they at least moved me from seat 30E to 2C so I could get off quicker in Chennai. Flight left about 50 minutes late, and we made up some time and landed 40 minutes late. My original layover was 2 hours 20 minutes, so I thought I had a chance.

Next problem: no paper landing cards available. I had to hunt around, tried the online version, it didn’t work. Finally got landing card from an office, filled it out, and got through. Precious minutes wasted.

Made it through customs and over to the domestic terminal. At first they wouldn’t let me in, since my flight was in 9 hours, but finally I got in. At checkin they couldn’t fix my problem and directed me to a reservations office.

There I was first denied, no changes after you have started on your journey. But I finally got my point through and they put me back on the original flight, with 40 minutes to spare. Back to checkin to get a boarding pass. The lady that had changed my reservation helpfully pointed out that if I miss this flight I will have to pay to get on the next one. What service.

Security. This had not been a problem so far on this trip, but here it was. Both my backpacks were sent for manual checking. I had taken my phone, laptop, watch etc off but they wanted to see more. My razor. My charger. My extra lens. And on an on. Another pass through the X-ray machine.

Finally they were done and I rushed to the gate where boarding had already started, but I made it with minutes to spare.

Uneventful flight in an IndiGo 321neo to Kochi. After landing I ordered an Uber to my hotel, a ride of about an hour and a half. Confusion with the driver again, but it got resolved. Finally done with all the problems.

Or so I thought. Turns out today was the day Narenda Modi visited Kochi, so we soon ran into roadblocks. We had to detour through villages and residential neighborhoods with no apparent end in sight. After two hours we were near our goal but one more obstacle remained, a long line to the car ferry. We had to wait for four ferries before they could get us on.

After a short ride across the water we finally reached the hotel. I tipped the driver generously, this was not a winner for him.

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