India/Nepal – Day 15

India/Nepal – Day 15

August 6, 2009, 11:48 pm
Filed under: India Tour '09, Mission

This has been truly our first bad day.   Yesterday, we drove down from the hills with Joey and his family, as he had a meeting in Delhi and we were due to fly out from there.   We finally got to meet up with JoJo from Wild Fire Tribe, and we stayed at his house.  We stayed up pretty late talking and jamming with him, but we had to get up to catch a flight that left at noon to Kathmandu, Nepal.  Sean and I got up in plenty of time, but JoJo did not.  Plus, there was the obligatory greetings and breakfast… but we were insistent that we needed to leave.  So around 10 am, we finally departed for the airport.  Delhi has maybe the worst traffic in the world, and so it took us a little over an hour to get to the airport.  By the time we got to the check-in desk, it was 11:15, and they refused to let us check-in, saying we were too late.  Beg and plead as we might, our only alternative would be to purchase new tickets (since the ones we had were non refundable and non transferrable).  Flustered, we shelled out $500 for a new flight… more than twice what the original ones cost, but it was the only flight left and we had to get there that day.    So as we’re waiting, Sean and I completely forget about our multi-tools on our person.   Of course, they were confiscated at security check.   As I was trying to bribe the officers (that’s accepted and encouraged over here), our names came over the speaker.  We were about to miss the second flight!  So we abandoned our knives and rushed to our gate.  We took a bus to the plane, and when we got there and they wanted to see my boarding pass, I couldn’t find it or my passport.  So they flagged down the bus we had just got off of, and fortunately they were still on there.   So we board the plane, frustrated, flustered, but glad to be sitting down and done with it.   That is, until the pilot came over the speaker and said that they were “missing a part” and that we would be there indefinitely while they tried to replace it.   After two hours of sitting in the plane on the tarmac, we were finally in the air towards Nepal.   Our contact in Kathmandu, Kav, had no way of knowing that we had missed the flight.  But fortunately, she was diligent and was waiting on us after we had gone through customs and baggage check.   We took a cab to the guest house we would be staying in, and as we were getting out of the cab, I asked, “Sean, where’s your pedal board?”   We had left it at the airport – just completely forgot about it when grabbing our luggage.   So we hurry back to the airport, and by the hand of providence ran into the airline workers just as they were leaving.   We were able to retrieve the pedal board, and head back to the Norwegian Guest House and finally unwind.   As rough as the day had been, we are anticipating some great things in Kathmandu.  We know that opposition is many times a sign that we are doing something right, and so in that regard its somewhat encouraging.   But we are now exhausted, and have taken a serious hit to our budget.    But we’re in a beautiful country, staying in a peaceful place, and looking forward to the next few days.

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