Random Chaos

Hyderabad Trip-1 Nov. 2005

Got back a few days ago from the first of 3 trips to Hyderabad, and probably the most relaxed trip for this year. The next two are going to be really hectic.

With all the travel in sight and my S55's keys popping out and being held in place with lamination. I decided to get a new phone, was the worst possible time to buy one with new models either having just been launched or going to be launched in a months time. Ended up buying my first non-siemens phone after 6+ years and it's been a mixed bag of (mis)adventures.(Read about my experiences with the Razr.)

The trip to Hyderabad almost ended before it began thanks to calling Motorola Customercare multiple times and trying to master the new phone in the few hours before my flight. I barely managed to check-in about 15 minutes before departure.

Having learnt from my experiences at a telugu wedding last year, decided not to attend the entire 6+ hour ceremony and just dropped in for about an hour . Attended almost entire duration of the reception the following day though and got to meet up with a handful of schoolmates including one of them for the first time since 1993.

It was suggested at the reception that we meetup the following day for dinner where we could talk more leisurely, considering such meetups in the past couple of years have barely had 4-5 people in attendance, I went about calling everyone in my phonebook and was kinda certain that this meet wasn't going to be any different from the past ones. But boy was I wrong, it turned out to be one of the best meetups since the very first one 5 years ago. With 10 of us guys hanging out form around 8:30PM till midnight, and a few more people meeting up after 10-12 years, and even Chandu was there for a long time inspite of having been married for <48 hours. His wife must totally hate us!

I got to fly Kingfisher for the first time for the return trip and it definitely was an experience, It was the cheapest ticket I could find for the sector after factoring in auto/taxi charges. I could book the ticket and choose my seat on their website. And had one of their staff "relay" teams take over my trolley as I was entering the terminal and I just had to walk along with them as they got my check-in baggage screened, secured and placed on the weighing scale at the check-in counter. The flight itself was definitely the best domestic flight I've ever been on. I think the LCD screens were bigger than on my last Emirates flight in 2002, complete with 4 video channels and 6 audio channels, mostly showing reruns of TV shows. And you had Yana Gupta doing the "kursi ki peti... do dwaar aagey/peechey" routine on the screen in front of you.(Altough someone needs to tell her that blowing from an inch away won't inflate a life jacket!) The inflight meal consisted of kababs and rolls and way better than the cold danish/croissants that you get on the other airlines. Will definitely choose Kingfisher over any of the other airlines next time I'm buying a full fare ticket.

Been busy catching up with work and other things in Bangalore, finally joined the Gym, though with all the travel this month I'll end up missing quite a few sessions.