Alrighty folks, I finally came back on Saturday in San Francisco at 8 pm and didn't get to Zen Center until 9. I booked a shuttle when I was at Chicago airport and the cool thing was even though I gave them the wrong time that I would arrive at SFO, I was still able to get a ride.
The entire flight was really long. I flew from Varanasi to Delhi...and I seriously thought I was gonna miss that flight. It was pretty nerve racking. I checked out of my hotel in Varanasi at about 1 pm for a 4:15 flight...but the ride to the airport was quite hairy. First, the cab that I booked decided that they didn't want to drive to the airport because of the bad traffic...(I heard that there was some kind of protest going on for Anna Hazare who was arrested for his stance against corruption). Now that I'm back in SF, there is still a lot of protest going on in India at the moment for Anna (you be forgiven to think that it is a name of a female...but it is not...the title simply means "big brother" in the southern part of India).
Well anyways, I had to take an auto-rickshaw...and boy I was literally on the edge of my seat the entire journey. Traffic was horrible in Varanasi....which is not really a city like Delhi or Mumbai...but man traffic was hella bad for some reason. It took us almost an hour to get to the outskirt of the city and then all of sudden there was a traffic jam that was about a kilometer long. I swear to you...I was literally going out of my mind...thinking that I would surely miss my flight. It was roughly about 2:20 at this point and there were scores of school buses going in the opposite direction and whichever I turned...the traffic was horrendous. I thought it was gonna be like that the entire way...but to my relief...it only lasted for about half an hour before we got free from all that chaos. I think I arrived at Varanasi airport at about 3:10 and since it was a very small airport, was able to do all the check in before 3:30.
The flight to Delhi was smooth and I got there around 6 pm for my 12:30 am flight back to Chicago. They didn't allow us to check in until 8:30 pm...so I had to hang out in the airport for a few hours.
The flight from Delhi to Chicago proved to be another long journey. We had to land in Heathrow to refuel b/c the Russians for some reason did not allow the aircraft to enter their airspace and there was not enough fuel for a direct flight to Chicago. I was supposed to be in Chicago at about 6 am instead I didn't get there until noon. There was also a slight delay because of the bad weather and the plane was flying around in circle waiting for the airport to open and let us land. Since I got there late, I missed my 1:15 flight and had to wait there for 3 hours for a 4:45 flight back to SFO. I thought that the flight from Chicago to SFO would take roughly about 4 hours but it was more like 6. By now, I was pretty much exhausted and really can't wait to get off the plane for good.
It was nice to finally land in SFO, but I was pretty much disappointed to learn that despite our whole liberalism here in San Francisco, I really don't understand why in the world the airport charges $5 to rent an airport cart so that we don't have to carry all of our heavy luggage. WTF! I haven't seen such lameness anywhere in my life.
Well anyways folks, later in the week I will give you guys all the things that I've done during my last ten days in India. My pilgrimage and all the ppl that I met....but right now even though it's been three days since I've landed...I'm still a little jet lagged. But I will hopefully entertain you guys, now that I'm back home and with a faster internet speed, I will try and upload some videos too.
The entire flight was really long. I flew from Varanasi to Delhi...and I seriously thought I was gonna miss that flight. It was pretty nerve racking. I checked out of my hotel in Varanasi at about 1 pm for a 4:15 flight...but the ride to the airport was quite hairy. First, the cab that I booked decided that they didn't want to drive to the airport because of the bad traffic...(I heard that there was some kind of protest going on for Anna Hazare who was arrested for his stance against corruption). Now that I'm back in SF, there is still a lot of protest going on in India at the moment for Anna (you be forgiven to think that it is a name of a female...but it is not...the title simply means "big brother" in the southern part of India).
Well anyways, I had to take an auto-rickshaw...and boy I was literally on the edge of my seat the entire journey. Traffic was horrible in Varanasi....which is not really a city like Delhi or Mumbai...but man traffic was hella bad for some reason. It took us almost an hour to get to the outskirt of the city and then all of sudden there was a traffic jam that was about a kilometer long. I swear to you...I was literally going out of my mind...thinking that I would surely miss my flight. It was roughly about 2:20 at this point and there were scores of school buses going in the opposite direction and whichever I turned...the traffic was horrendous. I thought it was gonna be like that the entire way...but to my relief...it only lasted for about half an hour before we got free from all that chaos. I think I arrived at Varanasi airport at about 3:10 and since it was a very small airport, was able to do all the check in before 3:30.
The flight to Delhi was smooth and I got there around 6 pm for my 12:30 am flight back to Chicago. They didn't allow us to check in until 8:30 pm...so I had to hang out in the airport for a few hours.
The flight from Delhi to Chicago proved to be another long journey. We had to land in Heathrow to refuel b/c the Russians for some reason did not allow the aircraft to enter their airspace and there was not enough fuel for a direct flight to Chicago. I was supposed to be in Chicago at about 6 am instead I didn't get there until noon. There was also a slight delay because of the bad weather and the plane was flying around in circle waiting for the airport to open and let us land. Since I got there late, I missed my 1:15 flight and had to wait there for 3 hours for a 4:45 flight back to SFO. I thought that the flight from Chicago to SFO would take roughly about 4 hours but it was more like 6. By now, I was pretty much exhausted and really can't wait to get off the plane for good.
It was nice to finally land in SFO, but I was pretty much disappointed to learn that despite our whole liberalism here in San Francisco, I really don't understand why in the world the airport charges $5 to rent an airport cart so that we don't have to carry all of our heavy luggage. WTF! I haven't seen such lameness anywhere in my life.
Well anyways folks, later in the week I will give you guys all the things that I've done during my last ten days in India. My pilgrimage and all the ppl that I met....but right now even though it's been three days since I've landed...I'm still a little jet lagged. But I will hopefully entertain you guys, now that I'm back home and with a faster internet speed, I will try and upload some videos too.
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