GetSetJetSet

PLANNING: (21,848 Miles to be flown)

This all started back in Feb. ’19. I was feeling the post-trip hangover from NYE and it was cold, dark and I was stuck at work every day dreaming of jetting off somewhere. As I am wont to do, I was scanning the premium fare deals forum and from time to time running random award searches. I forget what exactly prompted me to search for flights to BOM, but much to my surprise, I found J avail NYC-YYZ-BOM on AC. Figuring that 85,000 miles was a reasonable price to pay, and that non-stop J flights to India rarely become available, it seemed prudent to snatch this flight up, so I booked AC J EWR-YYZ-BOM for the aforementioned miles and (I think) $9 in taxes.

For a while, I let myself live the lie that this was only a speculative booking and maybe I would cancel it. After all, it was Feb. ’19 when I booked, and travel would not be until Dec. 1. I had picked that date to search, figuring I had to remain in the U.S. for the Ohio State v. *ichigan game, but there was no reason I couldn’t pop out for a quick pre-NYE warm up jaunt between Dec. 1 and Christmas.

After a short interval, I gave up on the idea of my BOM flight being speculative and started drilling down on the itinerary. I have wanted to go to Kerala for years, so after some research, I decided to divide the trip up between Bombay and Kerala, with the vast majority spent on the beaches of Varkala and Kovalam.

With my destinations set, I went back and forth between AI and 9W for the BOM-TRV leg, thankfully settling on an AI booking. In the time since, 9W has gone out of business, so that would have been quite a headache.

I am IHG Inner Circle Spire Elite somehow. I only stayed maybe 5-6 nights at IHG properties in 2018 but still managed this status. Since I generally HATE IHG properties, I have stayed 1 night total in 2019 and will not retain any status in 2020. I figured this was a good opportunity to burn some points and hopefully get some benefit from my status before it disappears, so I booked 2 nights at the IC Marine Drive in Mumb…no forget that, BOMBAY.

Once I finalized my split of days between Varkala and Kovalam I examined hotel options. There were cheap, clean and decent looking places I flirted with booking, but in the end I decided I am too old to care about a “bargain,” and I booked the Gateway Varkala and the Taj Green Cove Kovalam, which in my estimation were the nicest options.

As for getting out of India, my gf would be back in London with her parents for Christmas, so I thought it would be nice to pop in and see them for a few days. I used AA miles to book QR J TRV-DOH-LHR. This unfortunately will require a 9 hour layover in DOH after a 3:45am departure from TRV, but I am telling myself it will be OK because I can pay to upgrade myself to the QR F lounge and hopefully cop a day room to pass out in for 5-6 hours before continuing. The DOH-LHR leg is in Q-suites, so that’s nice.

I had initially planned to spend 4 days with my gf’s family, but some time in March/April my gf expressed a desire to see Venice, as she had never been. Since I had not told her I was going to India, and was not planning do so until ~3 days before departure, I thought that taking her to Venice would take some of the sting out. Unbeknownst to her, I booked us LHR-VCE-LHR on BA. However, due to a schedule change months after booking, BA felt the need to email her with new flight times and ruin the surprise. Thanks guys! So now I would arrive DOH-LHR, overnight at the Renaissance LHR where my gf would meet me and we would fly out early for Venice where we would spend two nights seeing the city and staying at the Gritti Palace.

On the back end of Venice, we would fly VCE-LHR on BA and finally get to her parents…and their puppy.

After a very brief visit, I booked an Avios ticket LHR-HEL. Unfortunately this was schedule changed to a horrific 7:55am departure, and I have been told I have no recourse, so it will be a very short visit with her family indeed.

Once I get to Helsinki, I have one night to catch up with friends and enjoy my favorite hotel in Scandinavia, Hotel Kamp. Then I FINALLY take the last portion of the VERY useful AY J fare I have been using in pieces all year. I flew YYZ-JFK-HEL in June on my way to Paris, then continued HEL-SIN later that month. In September, I took the HKG-HEL portion on my way to Oktoberfest and now, I will finally be completing this YYZ-JFK-HEL-SIN, HKG-HEL-LHR-YYZ fare with the HEL-LHR-YYZ legs. My LHR-YYZ flight doesn’t get in with enough time to connect out to NYC that night, so another overnight (hotel TBD) will be required before a final anticlimactic AA Y YYZ-LGA flight to end the trip.

This 2+ week jaunt COULD have been a huge waste of valuable private pilot flying time, but as luck (I suppose) would have it, my CFI will be gone almost the exact same dates for his training prior to joining United as a FO, so I am not missing anything. With any luck, we can finish the last bits of training between Dec 16 and Dec 24 and I can squeeze my FAA check ride in before Christmas if the weather complies. Fingers crossed. Looking forward to escaping the wintery mix and getting some SUN. Here we goooooo!

After wrapping this up, it's ~10 days back in NYC for Christmas with my family, then departing on an EPIC and lengthy NYE trip to: Phu Quoc, Saigon, Hakuba (skiing), Kyoto, Tokyo, Manila, Cebu City, Panglao Island, Bangkok, Luang Prabang, Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai, Hong Kong, Sydney, Ayers Rock, Melbourne, Auckland, Santiago, Easter Island, Sao Paulo, Iguazu Falls, Rio and Buzios...there will for sure be a report on that one as well .

Flights:
LGA- YYZ AC J (85,000 UA Miles)
YYZ-BOM AC J (Part of the same 85,000 miles UA award)
BOM-TRV AI J ($$$)
TRV-DOH QR J (38,250 AA Miles)
DOH-LHR QR J (Part of the same 38,250 AA Mile award)
LHR-VCE BA J ($$$)
VCE-LHR BA J ($$$)
LHR-HEL BA J (8,000 Avios)
HEL-LHR AY J ($$$)
LHR-YYZ BA J ($$$)
YYZ-LGA AA Y ($$$)

Hotels:
InterContinental Marine Drive, Bombay (30,000 IHG Points)
Taj Gateway, Varkala ($$$)
Taj Green Cove, Kovalam ($$$)
Renaissance LHR, London ($$$)
Gritti Palace, Venice ($$$)
Hotel Kamp, Helsinki ($$$)
TBD, Toronto (???)

GetSetJetSet

AC 707
LGA-YYZ
Airbus A320-200
Seat 3A (Business)
C-FDQQ
Flight #90 of 2019

So everything was planned, all well and good. I got my check-in open notification, went to OLCI got my BPs and went to go watch THE GAME. The Buckeye throttled TSUN and all was well in the world. Then I got a bizarre email from Air Canada telling me they had changed my flights. At first glance, it looked like they had “changed” me to the same flight #s so I didn’t understand what was going on…then I checked the status of my EWR-YYZ flight…”cancelled.” I looked at the email more closely and saw my flight date now read Dec. 2, not Dec. 1. This was NOT at all OK. I tried to call Air Canada, but now when you try to call them it says due to migrating systems they are experiencing higher call volume blah blah blah, all agents are busy and they can’t even place you on hold, if your travel is in the next 72 hours, please call back. Absolutely UNBELIEVABLE. They won’t let you talk to a person AND they won’t even let you hold for an operator.

I tried reaching out to AC on social media, nothing. I called United. United told me AC unilaterally changed my ticket (unclear if true) without me accepting the changes. I tried to explain the lunacy of moving my date of travel because the EWR-YYZ leg was cancelled when YYZ-BOM was operating as scheduled and UA and AC operate a dozen + NY area flights to Toronto daily. The Philippine call center drone I got after my 40-minute wait didn’t understand or care. She told me she called AC 3 times and no one answered. I explained that I couldn’t even get them on the phone and had waited almost an hour to speak to her, so I would wait while she continued to try. She put me back on hold and eventually the music changed to AC music and I was actually on hold for an AC agent…a place I would remain for the next THREE HOURS.

On my landline phone, I tried calling United again. While on my next 40+ minute UA hold, I checked my reservation online on AC’s website and saw it now showed “I” class travel EWR-YYZ-BOM on 12/2 AND LGA-YYZ-BOM on 12/1 with the first leg in “I” and the second in “J.” I had asked the first UA agent to rebooked me LGA-YYZ and reinstate my YYZ-BOM flight but she said she couldn’t. Perhaps she had gotten part of the way there.

The crux of the problem, was when EWR-YYZ was cancelled, the system auto-moved me to 12/2 and apparently UA couldn’t put things back correctly because there was no longer award space on YYZ-BOM, I had been moved off the flight and only AC could put it back. This was despite the fact that when UA asked me to accept changes I said “NO,” apparently even if you say NO, they just do it anyway. Awesome.

When UA finally picked up, the agent said he saw my 12/1 and 12/2 reservations, 12/1 was confirmed and he would just clean up the 12/2 flights and we’d be all set. Then he started to sound concerned and asked if he could put me on a “brief” hold, this would last ~45 minutes.

In the time I was waiting for the UA agent to return, miracle of miracles, someone from Air Canada FINALLY answered. I explained my plight to her and that I just wanted to be put back on the flight I booked in Feb., and I didn’t care if I got to YYZ from JFK, EWR or LGA. She put me on another “brief” hold.

While I was on all these holds, I had been searching other possible routings, the only other possibility to get in on 12/2 was LH JFK-MUC-BOM. I refreshed UA.com and found this routing was now off the table as well. There was no way to BOM other than getting my original routing reinstated.

The UA agent finally came back, told me he was wrong, my 12/1 flights were gone, only 12/2 was there. I explained that was not good enough, and AC had told me UA made the changes, not AC. I asked WHY if I had refused the changes, UA had made them anyway. The call center agent followed his script saying he agreed it was a bad situation but there was nothing UA could do, it was AC’s problem. I asked HOW if I paid United, United made the changes and United issued the ticket it was Air Canada’s problem, but the agent just followed his script.

I told him I was on hold with AC trying to reinstate my original itin, but failing that, how was UA going to get me to BOM on 12/2? I didn’t care what routing, but I booked a flight on 12/1 to arrive on 12/2, dates of travel are not fungible. The agent said nothing, so after verifying he was still on the line, I asked if UA would put me on the LH F routing JFK-MUC-BOM still available as an award redemption, since no biz options remained. He put me back on hold.

He returned with the advice of his supervisor that no UA wouldn’t do that, or really anything, it was AC’s problem. I asked him to transfer me to the supervisor and went back on hold.

While I was waiting for UA to come back, FINALLY the Air Canada agent returned and to my absolute SHOCK and delight told me she had rebooked me on 12/1 LGA-YYZ-BOM, and I was back on my originally booked longhaul. I asked her to please stay on the phone with me while I did OLCI, knowing if something went wrong I’d never get another AC agent on the line.

MAGIC! I was able to check in AC 707 to AC 46. I lost my originally assigned Seat 1A on YYZ-BOM, but was able to select another J window, first world problems.

At this point, I hung up on UA since I was still on hold and they clearly did not care at ALL.

With my new BPs electronically delivered, I thanked the AC agent profusely and hung up. Out of curiosity I checked my booking on Air Canada’s website and found that not only was my original NYC-YYZ-BOM routing on 12/1 restored, but instead of “I” class which I had booked as an award, my ticket was now on AC ticket stock, not the UA 016, my LGA-YYZ was in “P” and the YYZ-BOM ULH was in “Z,” so I would be earning PQMs for this award flight.

I suppose that’s about as happy a resolution as one could have from this situation. I will consider the PQMs compensation for my 4+ hours on the phone sorting out this situation that would have been a non-event if either airline bothered to spend enough $ to even maintain a properly staffed offshore call center. Not even going to dare to dream that they hire English speaking actual Americans based in the CONUS (or Canadians in AC’s case), or that I could receive some sort of competent service from agents with the ability to think for themselves, as that is obviously not a realistic possibility in 2019.

With my tickets FINALLY sorted (hopefully), I started packing while watching the end of OU’s near blowout of Ok State. At least ‘Bama lost the Iron Bowl while I was on hold, deal with it Saban.

I managed to get everything into my carry-ons, no small feat considering I had to pack for the varying climates and temps of Bombay, Kerala, London, Venice, Helsinki and Toronto; then drifted off the sleep.

I awoke early and decided to head to the airport early to ensure I would be able to deal with any issues face to face.

The ride out to LGA was a breeze and I went to the AC desks, assuming they’d want to check my India visa before letting me travel.

I waited on the Elite/Biz line, and when the Biz desk opened up, I strode to the front. Much to my surprise, a guy on the economy line started shouting
“EXCUSE ME! EXCUSE ME! WE HAVE BEEN WAITING!” Sorry bud, different desks for Biz and Economy, take it up with twinkboi Trudeau if you want us all to be equal comrades!

AC flights leave from the newly renovated part of LGA, which I have to admit is pretty nice, and there’s an AC Lounge after security. It looks nice and has ample seating but there's pretty much nothing in the way of food.

AC 707 was delayed. I started to worry, and hoped that we would get out before the weather. Luckily, while rebooking the previous evening, I asked the AC agent to put me on the earliest possible NYC-YYZ flight so I would have wiggle room for delays as AC 46 doesn’t depart until 8:40pm.

AC 707 finally took off closer to noon (10:25am scheduled). The weather hadn’t hit NYC yet, but it was getting close. The weather in Toronto was BAD, I checked the METAR at CYYZ and saw 700 foot ceilings, 1 mile visibility, wind gusting close to 40 knots with snow and ice. The crew earned their pay.

After de-iceing and a short taxi we were up and into the soup. The crew said there would be no service due to “turbulence” but really there was barely any chop the entire way, they probably just didn’t feel like it. They also didn’t turn on the IFE. We never broke out of the clouds, so my window seat didn’t do much for me.

I spent the entire flight reading a review guide for the FAA oral exam and trying not to let the crying baby in row 4 or the snoring ginger next to me get on my nerves.

When we punched out on final it was clear that it was a really lousy day in America Jr., the pilot chunked it onto the runway but it was a decent enough landing. After a short taxi through the snow and ice, we bellied up to a jetway.

GetSetJetSet

AC 707 LGA-YYZ

GetSetJetSet

AC 46
YYZ-BOM
Boeing 777-200LR
C-FIUJJ
Seat 11A (Business)
Flight #91 of 2019


I followed the signs for international connections and decided I might as well try to get into the new Air Canada Signature Suite Lounge. Now this lounge is AC’s absolute FANCIEST offering, and is meant only for biz pax on revenue tickets in specific fare buckets flying on AC metal. Had my ticket remained the award “I” bucket I booked through UA, I would not have been eligible for entrance.

However, the agent had rebooked me in “Z” the previous day, and that WAS one of the eligible classes. The fine print on the AC website, says if you’re rebooked into an eligible class during IRROPS you still can’t use the lounge, but I figured I’d give it a shot anyway, and if it didn’t work out I could double back to the dismal Maple Leaf Lounge.

Much to my surprise, the guy scanned my BP and welcomed me to the lounge, nice…bank error in my favor!

I was given a brief tour of the lounge, then I dropped my bags and went to the a la carte restaurant where I had a lovely lunch of foie gras followed by a burger. This more than made up for the lack of service on LGA-YYZ…I could get used to this.

I’ve visited most of the “best” airline lounges in the world, and while the overall space in the Signature Suite Lounge is not up there in the “best” category, I have to say it was perhaps the best meal I have had in an airline lounge, even counting other airline’s F lounges. Well done AC…well done.

The lounge just turned 2 on the day of my visit (12/1/19), so if your travel plans involve transiting YYZ…I recommend.

After lunch, I went for a long walk around the terminal to limber my legs up in anticipation of 14-16 hours in a seat for YYZ-BOM. Unfortunately the E-gates where AC 46 was departing from don't comprise a tremendous amount of space, so this was pretty much an hour+ of me walking in circles, I can tell you all you'd like to know about the stores and the duty free offerings now .

As we got closer to boarding time, a brief delay from 8:40pm to 9:10pm was posted. Around 8:30pm boarding commenced. As I mentioned earlier, I lost Seat 1A, and ended up in 11A during the rebooking. This turned out to be just fine. There is a mini-cabin at the back of Business on the AC 772’s and not only do I generally prefer the smaller feel of the mini-cabin, but this one was almost empty, with only (I think) 6 of the 14 seats occupied.

Even though we boarded close to on-time, we spent ages on the ground waiting to push, then waiting to de-ice, de-iceing and taxiing. Thankfully, the FA’s distributed headsets while we were on the ground and I got right to the movies.

I am a big hockey guy, so when I saw the movie “Goalie” about Terry Sawchuk loaded in the IFE, that was obviously going to be my first choice. Overall it was a pretty good movie, but the laughably low budget detracted from my overall enjoyment. Presumably due to no $ for licensing or something, they couldn’t use real NHL logos, so they had cartoonish, stupid fake logos for all the real teams. Beyond that, the actors they hired for the in-game hockey sequences could barely skate…you’re making a hockey movie in Canada, just find some guys who at least played Juniors and offer them $100 bucks for the shoot, pretty sure you could do a LOT better.

About 2/3 of the way through “Goalie” we actually took off. The Captain said our flight time was set to be 14h3m, and the “door to door” would be 14h45m, not sure what his definition of “door to door” was, but we boarded around 8:30pm local in Toronto and landed two hours late, close to midnight in BOM, it was certainly more than 15h in that seat.

After “Goalie,” I went with “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” thinking “how bad could it be…surely it will be mindless and entertaining!” I was wrong. My notes from the flight read “Holy f*$% this is bad. How have we as a species devolved to this point?” It was like the focus group of Hollywood execs came up with a “woke” checklist to hit and figured it they ticked all those boxes there would be no need for an actual plot. My main gripes in no particular order: 1. The military commander is a 20 something year old STRONG, bald, black womyn. Of course, they needed a woman to be in charge on the military side so why not also make her a minority? Max woke points! Beyond the obvious pandering, it was laughable that they expect us to believe a 20 something year old would have attained the rank of Colonel already. In a movie about colossal monsters rising from the depths of the Earth, the poorly written human characters were the least believable part of this steaming turd. 2. With the strong, minority woman box ticked, next up was a global warming theme. Blah, blah, blah humans are destroying the Earth, so one of the leads goes rogue and wants to free these monsters so they can wreck the place up and restore order. 3. Finally, now that we’ve established how lib and woke this film is…time to slip in some Chinese propaganda to capture those overseas revenues. Oh look, here’s a brilliant Chinese scientist that’s working with the American government. Surely she will solve all of our problems! Beyond these complaints, the dork from the West Wing who also played the bad guy in Billy Madison’s character was so stupidly written that I wanted to track down the screenwriter and beat him/her/it to death with his/her or zher’s horribly written script. His character was a 70 year old boomer trying to talk like a millennial surfer, just make it stop. I turned the movie off halfway through, watched something else, then came back to sadly watch the end. Totally and irredeemably horrible, may a meteor destroy all of Hollywood for continuing to drag humanity down to this level.

As we transitioned from “Goalie” to that other film, the meal service commenced. AC started with a sad, small ramekin of nuts and followed that with some lousy cold vegetables and a wilted salad. Not so nice. For the main, I had butter chicken. As far as airplane curry goes, it was pretty solid. Cheese and an acceptable chocolate cake were served to wrap things up. Decent meal service.

After temporarily giving up on Movie #2, I watched “Stuber,” because after Godzilla, nothing could be TOO stupid. My notes on this film read “Really f$%^ing stupid.” It stars the Pakistani guy from Silicon Valley as a soiboi lib cuck failure that works in a sporting goods store, gets humiliated by his boss on a daily basis and pines for some girl who sees him as a sexless emotional support animal. On the other side of the early plot development, there’s a jacked, ethnically ambiguous cop who loses his partner to some south of the border narcos. He wants payback but wouldn’t you know it...he JUST had lasik eye surgery hours before he got a tip as to where to find his partner’s killer! Thankfully his hip, and also ethnically ambiguous artist daughter (how is she living the trust fund wannabe artist aka unemployed life when her father is a cop? Hmmm, perhaps a dirty cop!) showed him how to use uber earlier in the film! The cop ends up hailing our protagonist who is dragged along against his will, and wouldn’t you know it, over the course of the film, they both learn things about themselves and grow. The bad guy goes to jail. The incel melvin millennial lead finds his balls and realizes he’ll never get out of the friend zone with his crush, because she will never stop chasing CHAD, and finally ends his decade long holding pattern and then conveniently ends up dating the cop’s daughter. Of course, the big lug realizes how important his feelings and family are. What a heart-warming story. Really, really dumb but much less offensive that Godzilla, and at least it had some funny moments.

With the “entertainment” portion of the flight wrapped up, I passed out hard for 7-8 hours. I am not a great fan of the AC 772 J seat. There’s ample space in the footwell, which is nice, but the dining table can’t be properly stowed. You can push it up closer to the TV, but it really needs to be able to be folded to the side and stowed somewhere inside the armrest. Always having the table protruding under the TV makes it feel like you’ve put your entire lower body into a box and it’s awkward and not particularly comfortable. An almost great seat that’s handicapped by this serious design flaw. Who tests these things anyway? Since the cabin was so very empty, I snagged an extra mattress pad (AC provide mattress pad, duvet, pillow, amenity kits and slippers), an extra pillow and an extra duvet. I put both mattress pads and one of the duvets down as the “mattress” then slept under the second duvet. I was very, very comfortable, hence the 7-8 hours of solid sleep.

I woke up 4h10m outside of Bombay and figured since we were likely going to land sometime between 11pm and midnight, there was no point in more sleep. I wanted to be able to pass out when I got to the hotel. I watched the airshow, messed around on my phone and bought an hour of internet before giving in and watching the rest of the awful Godzilla movie. When that finished up, we were around 2 hours from Bombay and I didn’t want to start another movie I wouldn’t have time to finish, so that was that.

On final over the slums, you can smell Bombay before the wheels hit the tarmac. India has a distinct smell, cooking spices, burning and a mass of humanity. It had been four years since my last visit to India, but on short final, when that smell hit my nostrils, I was ready to start this new adventure.

GetSetJetSet

AC 46 YYZ-BOM

gaobest

No poutine with AC?
glad the award flight got sorted after 4 hours on the phone. Ouch. Shame they couldn’t get the LH F routing!

enviroian

Thanks for a great report! Not sure if I enjoyed the movie review or trip review better.

offerendum

The ground product looks very nice^

gaobest

Btw surely there must have been more movies that could have been better? My recent UAL 772 flight had dozens of movies. I enjoyed all 3 I saw although Ready or Not had a lot of gore.

GetSetJetSet

Didn't see poutine offered, even in the lounge! LH F is always nice, but honestly I was happier to keep my original routing. Nicer to have the ULH with ample time to sleep vs. short overnight flight -> long layover -> another 6-8h flight. Also, only the TATL segment would have been F, the onward to BOM was (I think) an A350 with no F.

Good to hear! I enjoyed writing both.

Yea, the lounge is very nice, but during peak times it gets very crowded. Since I had a super long layover I had the benefit of seeing it early when there were barely any people there. It could be tough to find a table in the restaurant at peak time.

Don't get me wrong, AC had a very extensive IFE library. I have just seen everything, pitfalls of flying too much.

GetSetJetSet

Bombay / Intercontinental Marine Drive

After a long walk from the gate to immigration, I handed the customs form to the official along with my current passport and my old, now expired 110+ page passport that contains my 10-year India visa that will remain valid until 2022.

Of course, I had no checked bags, so I went straight for the exit. After some confusion I found the driver I had pre-arranged with the Intercon at a rip off price of something like 5,000 INR. This was about 10x what it should cost, but I knew after a day in transit, I wouldn’t want to look for an ATM or wait on a taxi queue, and it wasn’t THAT much money in the grand scheme of things.

Even after midnight, it took almost an hour to get from BOM to the IC. When I walked into the lobby, there was some sort of altercation going on. A local guy was arguing with the desk clerk, then threw a wad of bills in his face and told him that he was disrespecting him. Another staffer led me to an elevator and took me up to my room to do check-in there. I don’t know if this is normal procedure, or they just didn’t want me to see the dust up.

As mentioned, I booked an entry-level room with points. The IC seemed positively TICKLED to have a Spire member, they thanked me over and over again, upgraded me to a sea-view suite and threw in free breakfast. They treated me so well, I was almost sorry that I didn’t bother to maintain status with IHG…almost.

By the time I got settled in the room it was after 1am, so I took a quick shower to wash the flight off then passed out.

Thanks to the wonders of jetlag, I woke up much earlier than I would have liked. I went down to the first floor and had a masala dosa for breakfast (big dosa fan). I only had one full day in Bombay, as this was more of a transit stop than a proper visit. I had done all of the major tourist stuff on my last real stop, in 2013. Still, I wanted to spend more time exploring the city on foot. What I really love about Bombay is that it’s a walkable city, I hate that Delhi is so spread out. For me, if you can’t walk around a city, it’s not really a city…you hear that LA? You’re just a loosely knit collection of strip malls and suburbs, deal with it.

From the IC, I set off on Marine Drive, with the intention of walking to Victoria Terminus. I got turned around a few times, then finally go there…sort of. I saw a building roughly in the right spot, that had architecture that sort of looked right and figured I had it pegged. I went in and was surprised to see a market instead of train tracks, but figured perhaps it had been converted. I know now that I ended up in Crawford Market, NOT Victoria Terminus, I was pretty much around the corner from my intended destination, but it was not to be, I will have to return on my next visit!

After exiting the market, I walked across the street, through another market, towards the Juma Masjid Mosque, then continued South, on course for Colaba. I popped over to the India Gateway then went to the Taj for tea. On my only previous visit to Bombay I had stayed in the Palace Wing of the Taj, but this time I was not a guest. When I tried to sit down for tea in the courtyard, the waiter asked for my room number. I told him no room number, just tea, and I was told that area is only for guests and Chamber’s Club members! Oh the embarrassment! I went back to the much less pleasant tower lobby and took my tea there. Slumming it hard.

When tea-time wrapped, I walked over the Leopold’s because I read Shantaram, and that’s what one does I suppose. It looked just as unimpressive as it did in 2013. I had a coke while some rowdy South Africans at the table next to me continued to get noon time pissed, well done boys.

I took a meandering path from Leopold’s back to Marine Drive and then back to the IC. On the recommendation of FlyerTalk, I had lunch at Kebab Korner located in the hotel. I was in search of good, authentic and most of all properly spicy (not white people spicy) Indian food. This place had come up as a reco, and was convenient, so I figured why not…

The food was OK, not at all spicy despite my request that it be and it was massively overpriced. This was the second time I followed FlyerTalk’s advice on Indian food. The first was earlier this year in Singapore, that place was also a miss. FT is great for many things, but it seems Indian restaurant recommendations are not one of them.

After lunch, jetlag started to hit. I told myself I would take a nap, then get in a quick workout before meeting a friend for drinks. I set my alarm and passed out.

When the alarm started blaring, working out no longer sounded appealing, so I adjusted the timer and instantly fell asleep again.

I woke up an hour before I was set to meet my friend and found she had audibled. Initially I said meet at the rooftop bar at the IC and figure it out from there, since I am lazy and that was super convenient for me. While I had been asleep, the plan had been changed to dinner at Pali Bhavan then drinks at Bonobo since both of those were in Bandra, where her and her friends live and I suppose they are also lazy and like convenience.

I flirted with the idea of cancelling and going back to bed, but decided not to be a baby, got in the shower and got moving.

With traffic it was almost an hour from Marine Drive to Bandra. Luckily Pali Bhavan made decent old fashioneds and I was quickly buzzed enough to not care and not to be too exhausted.

Again the “spicy” food was not spicy, but after sending it back twice for re-spicing it was pretty hot. By that point I think the whisky had numbed my taste buds because while it was only a bit hot to me, the others said they could smell the spice from across the table and refused to even try it for fear of burned taste buds.

After Pali Bhavan we hopped a tuk-tuk to Bonobo and I switched from whisky to beer and more people joined the group.

My friend is a model in Bombay. I find this very amusing, because she is Australian, from Hong Kong and 100% Greek in origin. She gets work in Bombay because she can pass for Indian I suppose? It seemed ridiculous to me that they import swarthy models of euro extraction to play act as Indian instead of just picking from the billion+ actual Indians they have for these jobs. She is quite literally TAKING THEIR JERBS!

One of the drunker and more outspoken members of the group was an Indian, some sort of photographer I think? He railed against my friend getting work in India, saying that Indians need to stop worshipping white people, and exalting “white” beauty standards and have pride in India and Indian beauty, etc…this man was drinking before going back to his girlfriend that he lives with. Where in India is his girlfriend from you might ask? Oh, she’s white, from Argentina. I suppose that makes him an Uncle Vikram or whatever the Indian equivalent is? I didn’t call him out on his hypocrisy, but I was internally amused.

He was actually a very nice guy overall, even though our politics are very, very different. He ordered us all tequila shots and continued demanding round after round of drinks until the lights went up and the place closed. He told me he is pitching some sort of project to Netflix and asked me if I could write something tailored to India with him. When he shared with me his vision that started with “Imagine, someone is looking at the Men and Women signs for the bathroom and having an identity crisis, unsure which one they belong in!” I politely declined. That’s not for me.

Most of his advice was unsound. He told me that the only way to have real Indian food would be to go to places that will 100% make westerners sick and just deal with it. His opinion was that the “14 minutes of bliss” one would enjoy while eating these dishes would be worth the days of agony. I played along, but come on…not going to poison myself on purpose, you roll the dice every time you eat or drink anything in India as it is, no matter how nice the place is. I will never forget my friend who told people he got ill “trekking in India and Nepal.” Sounded like he was roughing it and fell ill. Years later the guy he had been with on that trip laughed at the swashbuckling sound of that description and told me “he got food poisoning from bad ice in a pina colada at the Amarvillas in Agra.” That is about as soft as it gets.

After Bonobo closed, we all tuk-tuk’d to another bar, but found it also closed. At this point, they suggested we go afterparty at someone’s apartment, but since I had to fly the following day, and I had wanted to be in bed hours ago, I told them I was going to call it a night.

After another 50 or so minutes in a laughably cheap uber, I was back at the IC and quickly asleep.

My last day in Bombay was less than ideal. Even though I was exhausted and had been out fairly late, jetlag kept me from getting proper sleep. I spent most of the morning resetting my alarm, tossing and turning, trying to get enough rest to make the prospect of going to BOM sound less awful.

While paying my share of dinner the previous night, I discovered that my AMEX was missing. In the sober light of day, I mentally retraced my steps and figured the only place I could have left it was at the Taj when I paid for my tea. I called the Taj, and they confirmed I had left my card there, and security had it.

My flight to TRV was departing at 5:20pm. I somehow decided that since Flyertalk said only 1-1.5 hours were necessary for domestic departures, that I would leave at 2:30pm, be at the airport by 3:30/3:45 and have ample time.

I failed to properly budget my time. The trip TO the Taj to pick up my card took much longer than anticipated due to traffic. The process of presenting my credentials, filling out forms and getting my card back also took longer than I figured it would.

On the way back, I tried to get an uber, but the jerk strung me along for 10-15 minutes, then never showed up. I ran and found a street taxi and once we were two blocks into the trip, some minister’s motorcade stopped traffic completely and we sat for a good 7-10 minutes before we could start slogging our way to Marine Drive again.

By the time I got out of the cab and ran across Marine Drive to the IC, I was starting to panic, this was going to be a close run thing.

I had left my bags in the lobby and checked out before going over to the Taj, so I grabbed my luggage and again requested an uber.

The same drill, some complete clown strung me along for 15 minutes I didn’t have while he drove around in circles. Getting increasingly worried now, I asked the doorman to hail me a cab and please tell the guy I was in a huge hurry.

When he finally managed to hail a cab, I popped in and it was after 3:20pm. When the IC doorman asked what time my flight was leaving at and I told him 5:20pm, his eyes nearly popped out of his head. There was nothing left to do but hope for the best.

The driver was a star and was doing his best to punch it and weave around slower traffic, but every time I checked our updated ETA in my google maps we were still going to be cutting it razor thin.

As we picked our way through the traffic jams, I opened kayak to explore my options. The 5:20pm was the last direct flight from BOM-TRV today, and what was more, there were NO AI flights BOM-TRV tomorrow. I had limited time in Kerala and had prepaid my hotels in full, so this was starting to look like a disaster. I cursed uber for the combined 30 minutes they had cost me, as that safety buffer would have left me well within reasonable time limits. I started to resign myself to paying for an airport hotel, a change fee and losing a night of my Varkala hotel. At least I figured if I got on one of the three AI BOM-DEL departures that left at 6pm or later, a time I figured was safe, I could overnight in DEL, take the 5:10am DEL-TRV and be in Varkala by 10-11am, it wouldn’t be that big a loss to only arrive 12 hours later. Still, I was hoping to make my original flight.

As we neared the cut off time for check-in closing, we were within sight of BOM but stuck in gridlock, still too close to call.

Finally, we got past the last choke point, and turned off on the road that leads to BOM T2 and the traffic melted away. I allowed myself a little optimism. It looked like I might actually make it.

When we pulled up in front, it was 50-55 minutes before departure for AI 667. The fare from the IC to BOM in a regular cab was slightly less than 400 INR (LOL), I tipped the guy 50% as a thanks for his exemplary effort. There were only a few people waiting to have their documents checked before entering the terminal, I might just make it.

GetSetJetSet

BOMBAY / INTERCON

gaobest

Hope you made that flight. Always so frustrating to feel so close and still so far away (that’s a Daryl & John song)
the Uncle Vikram story was so funny :-)

in 1992, a friend went to India for a month and he got so sick there that he was perspiring big time even after he returned to USA. It’s all done but I remember how brutal it got for him. Very very sick...

GetSetJetSet

I'll post the update shortly. Kerala was lovely. In the Al Safwa QR F Lounge in Doha now waiting to connect from TRV to LHR. A month in India in the early 90's must have been quite an adventure, I imagine things were A LOT different then. So far, in my 1/2 dozen trips to India, I have been lucky *knock on wood* and haven't gotten ill. It's not a country I would want to be sick in. I DID get sick in Nepal once but recovered by the time we were back in India. Where did you go in '92?

GetSetJetSet

AI 667
BOM-TRV
Airbus A320-200neo
VT-CIN
Seat 2A (Business)
Flight #92 of 2019


So, in the last installment, it was 50-55 minutes before the scheduled departure of AI 667, and I was just pulling up to BOM T2.

At this point, I allowed some optimism to creep in. I was tempted to ask if I could cut in front of the handful of people waiting to have their documents checked before entering T2, but since the terminal looked pretty empty, I figured I would be OK and I could just wait.

I got in and went directly to the AI J check-in desks. I already did OLCI but I didn’t want to have some sort of error require me to go back and get a paper ticket, there was no line anyway. The guy processing my check-in was very lackadaisical and didn’t seem concerned that I was cutting it close and even took time to sloooooowly hand write out a lounge invitation for me. That seemed a little optimistic, but I thanked him and made for security.

On my walk to domestic security, it struck me that T2 is very modern and quite nice, for sure must be new since my last transit through BOM in 2015. Any experts? I did fly AI EWR-BOM-GOI in 2015…not sure but it looks different.

When I got to security, it was the equivalent of mentally noting “I've made the runway, landing assured” and pulling the throttle to idle on short final. There were ZERO people on the business class security line, and perhaps a minute later I was airside.

I was actually going to make my flight. I didn’t want to get complacent, so I continued directly to Gate 41A. It was a decent hike from security. I walked past the lounge and flirted with the idea of popping in, but thought better of it.

Finally, I saw 41A. I checked our aircraft registration and found we’d been swapped from an A321 to an A320. I verified that the board read AI 667 to TRV and took a seat at the gate. IF boarding actually went off on time, it would be in about five minutes.

Flightaware indicated that this flight was often delayed, so it seemed likely there might be some time sitting at the gate in my future, but I did not care, I was actually going to make it to Kerala tonight.

ANOTHER stroke of good luck, we actually boarded on time. Air India have nice well padded recliner style seats on their domestic J aircraft, no IFE. The load in J was 4 of 12 for this slightly more than two-hour flight.

While we boarded on time, we didn’t push on time and sat at the gate for approximately an extra 30 minutes. Finally we started taxiing past the sad, secured Jet Airways 777s that I guess are being stored at BOM since 9W went belly up. RIP 9W! You were a damn fine airline!

At one point a former Jet Konnect aircraft passed close to us and I could see it was still in the 9W color scheme, but the JET logo on the tail had basically been crossed out, the JET named removed from the fuselage and “SpiceJet” was crudely written in it’s place. Seems that SpiceJet have acquired at least some of the old Jet/Jet Konnect domestic fleet.

After climbout, a meal was served. I honestly have no idea what any of it was. There was some sort of weird sandwich, maybe chicken, some other small bites and a cake. I still ate it, and it was pretty decent but yea…not sure what it was. After the meal, I put my sunglasses on and passed out. I hadn’t slept much the previous night what with the late evening out and the jetlag, so I was pretty beat.

The FA woke me up on final to ask me to put my seat upright. Along our approach path into TRV there were dozens of lights on the water near the city, I don’t know if they were boats or lighted buoys in the water but it looked like we were flying over an ocean of stars and it was a whimsical and pleasing way to transition from sleep to Kerala. Time for a new adventure.