DEL-BRU-JFK-FLL

The return trip home from India was a straight slog, I slept through nearly all of it, and have nothing of real interest to report. The pharmacies in Delhi will sell nearly anything so I purchased a handful of scooby snacks with my remaining rupees and passed out comfortably in Premiere Class all the way to JFK. These snacks mix very well with port and champagne, though it is not something your doctor would recommend. Bliss.
Photo credit: Feith Laszlo


Before boarding my flight (while still conscious), I spied in the terminal this painting (right) that seemed very familiar. No wonder. It is incredibly similar to the graphics that Scott Lenhardt created for the Ross Powers year 2000 pro model snowboard, manufactured by the Burton Snowboard Company. Take a look for yourself at this base graphic sheet (below) - am I right or what?
Photo credit: MHIP

Even the short list of Ross Powers´ accomplishments in the halfpipe are incredible - a gold medal (2002) and a bronze medal (1998) in the Winter Olympics; twice the winner of the US Open (2003, 1999) from seven podium appearances; winner of both a European Open (2004) and a New Zealand Open (2005); an X Games gold medal (1998); and numerous wins on the US Grand Prix tour.

After a long association with Stratton Mountain Resort Ross Powers is now partnered with the Mueller family ownership of the Okemo Mountain Resort in several projects. In addition, he currently owns and operates the Podium Skate & Snowboard Shop in Manchester, Vermont, as well as overseeing the non-profit Ross Powers Foundation that provides scholarships to athletes in financial need.
Image courtesy of Scott Lenhardt

BACK TO DELHI

There are some beautiful sights to see and places to visit in this city, but as I had only 14 hours between flights I didn't see any of them on this occasion, so I can only guess at the location and significance of this structure. It must be something worthy because my friend took a picture of it, and liked it so much he posted it on the internet, where I found it and copied it without permission. Thanks buddy!
Photo credit: John Carolin

THE MANGALA LAKSHADWEEP EXPRESS TO ERNAKULAM

I reluctantly leave Palolem and take the Mangala Lakshadweep Express overnight to Ernakulam in order to board a flight from Cochin (COK) to Delhi. There I will collect two bags of snowboard gear from the Left Luggage office at DEL and board the return flight home to the USA.

My original return flight was scheduled for today but I didn't think it was prudent to fly on April Fools Day. This didn't keep me from riding the trains however, but I did get pranked. The railway service is a great pride of India and it is said that despite the chaos, and all the other madness, that at least the trains run on time. This isn't true - Train No. 2618 was 1.5 hours late pulling into the station at Madgaon. The arrival though, at Ernakulam Junction, was dead-on time so the railway company redeemed itself in pretty short order.

This time on the overnight train I shared a compartment with farters and snorers, and I slept fitfully with my head buried in a pillow.

THE LOST LUGGAGE OFFICE, i.e., FINDING LEFT LUGGAGE AT DEL

The luggage depot is not well-marked and can be difficult to find. If you have a lot of gear you will want to hire (inexpensively) the porter to tote it over from the baggage claim area. The depot is located next to the car park at the international arrivals terminal. The cost is 30 INR per day at the time of this post, and well worth the expense to avoid hauling luggage around India.
Photo credit: MHIP

KASHMIR TO KERALA

I begin the journey from Kashmir, the northernmost state in India, to Kerala, its most southerly state. The trip starts at SXR where (after the tightest airport security one has ever witnessed) I meet up with John, winner of the 1st Global Snowboard Marathon held at Gulmarg. Here he displays the trophy clinched by mostly straightlining Affarwat top-to-bottom to earn the fastest time. A little trophy goes a long way; John ended up as an honorary guest in the First Class lounge at SXR.
Photo credit: MHIP


Snowboarding was the sole reason I had come to India; I had no travel plans beyond Gulmarg in Kashmir when I bought flight tickets and set out from home. However, on my latest visit to Srinagar there was news that my dogged pursuit of compensation from Jet Airlines (for my missing baggage) had produced an additional bonus - a R/T ticket anywhere in the country from DEL. I chose Kerala, it was about as far as one could go. (Here I am, trying to see what a little trophy can do for me - with luck (lots) it will enhance my charms).
Photo credit: John Carolin

DOUBLE TROUBLE IN DELHI

Stuck again! Flights leaving DEL recommence as the fog abates, but another day of heavy snowfall in Kashmir prevents all flights into SXR, so again I chase and cajole airline staff for vital airport currency - the expense voucher.

The first cancellation leads me to The Ashok Hotel in Chanakyapuri, the diplomatic enclave of New Delhi. Surrounded by parks and embassies, there is not too much to see on my walks but long sidewalks, tall walls, and forbidding gates.


I had been content enough to be put up at the Ashok, and assumed to there I would return, but I'm sent to the Radisson Hotel for my second night in Delhi. It's an excellent business-class hotel popular with high-end tour operators. I won’t be seeing my new friends here – this hotel is for First Class passenger vouchers, and mine is the only board bag in the hotel luggage locker. The location near the the airport is uninspiring but the hotel was an excellent and lucky choice. A first-class restaurant and exceptional rooms made a stay here easy. I later learn the rates start at USD $350 per night!
Photo credit(s): MHIP

LIGHTNING STRIKES TWICE

Flight 9W 229 arrives early from JFK, normally good news, but this only lengthens the original 12-hour layover in the domestic terminal at New Delhi. We land just ahead of the worst fog of the season at DEL, which causes widespread flight cancellations, a disruption to national transport, and more than a little chaos in the terminal. Passengers to Srinagar are finally notified late in the afternoon that there is no chance of flying, so I end up spending nearly 17 hours in an airport I am getting to know too well. (Thankfully I opted for a shower at the Premier Class lounge in Brussels!)

During the waiting period at DEL there was plenty of opportunity to dangle in waiting halls (or lounges, depending on seat class) and browse the other travellers. It became possible to identify passengers to Kashmir as they had been twice cancelled on all daily flights into SXR and were focusing into familiar faces.

The profile of over-size luggage and smart winter clothing made visitors to Gulmarg easy to spot and in this way I meet people who share my fate and frustration. Others are done worse than I having already passed three days grounded at DEL, incurring city hotel and transport costs (thankfully Jet Airways covers all my expenses for these delays).

Two lads from Oz are the first that I meet and talk to at length. We discover the Hotel Alpine Ridge is our shared destination at Gulmarg and make a loose plan to share a taxi out of DEL but are separated in the chaos following an announcement cancelling all flights.

The cancellations initiate a siege by passengers upon the airline staff for previously checked baggage, information and expense vouchers. I lose the lads, I’m on my own, and in the hunt for my bags, a new, confirmed onward ticket, and the vouchers for meals, hotel, and transportation.
Photo credit: MHIP

PREMIERE CLASS TO DELHI

A delay right out of the gate leaving Florida had me worried that the Jet Airways flight to DEL would leave without me, but similar problems at JFK allowed me the time to make that flight with a little time to spare. So I rested in the the comfort of the First Class lounge, and belted down my quota of complimentary drinks. The good folks at Jet Airways were waiting for me from the point of check-in onwards. At each and every encounter with the staff I was greeted by name and made welcome. My luggage was checked "Priority" and were the very first to come out the chutes at baggage claim. When Jet Airways rectifies an error they do it with style. Impressive.

The Boeing 777-300ER is an excellent aircraft; capable of cruising 1030 kmph it is the fastest plane in the Jet Airways fleet. The plane seats 274 persons in Economy Class, and 30 in Premiere Class, where I was among six happily seated. First Class consists of eight Ultra Cabins, similar to those on a train, but these were wholly unoccupied.

Seating in Premiere Class is banquette-style, with a fully reclining seat, kick-out ottoman, and a massage mechanism in the seat back. Of course, this comes with excellent, personal service and a few choices - drink the fine red wines, or opt for the Dom Perignon.
Photo credit: MHIP

PLANES, TRAINS, AND A WHOLE LOT OF STANDING AROUND

Assuming that all goes well I should arrive in Srinagar on 6 February 2008, but I now know better than to blindly believe that it will actually happen as planned. Everything has to go right on four separate flights to get into the end zone, and there is fog at DEL, frozen runways at SXR, and multiple baggage handlers along the way that could cause it all to go wrong. Pragmatism makes me cautiously optimistic, so I hope for the best, but plan for the worst (a bedroll and sleeping bag in carry-on for unplanned layovers).

Normally I have a "glass half-full" outlook on life, but when traveling I check the glass for leaks - delays and disruptions are a regular feature of getting from one place to another. Mother Nature, and sometimes the airline industry, are busily converting the remaining optimists. Just ask any of the 500,000 new recruits to pessimism: half a million people are stranded in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou because massive snowstorms have grounded transportation services to a halt.

I can't think of a better reason to be prepared when leaving the house, nor a better justification for that age-old mothers' admonition about going out wearing a clean pair of grundies. Bring several pairs if you're going to the airport, and don't forget to pack your Mini Motel - one of the best new travel products on the market.
Photo credit: Vincent Yu/Associated Press

MORE FUN WITH JET AIRWAYS

On the 25th December Jet Airways informs me the bag is located in DEL (Delhi) and will be shipped by air and ground for delivery on the 27th. On the 26th Jet Airways informs me the bag did not ship by air from DEL (no reason given). There will be a delay. The good news is I win 40 rupees betting against the bag being delivered as promised.
Photo credit: MHIP

JFK

An otherwise overly stressful, impossibly boring layover in Brussels is magnified when (post-boarding) the de-icing crew clips the right wing flap. It causes a two-hour delay on the tarmac. Worried passengers peer out the tiny windows at inspectors who take photographs of the damage and point fingers up into the falling snow. Major delay, no repair, we fly anyway.

The rest of the flight passes without incident, but when I arrive at JFK I get a huge kick in the nuts: the "mishandled" luggage is no longer in New York. It has been sent to the luggage office in DEL during the previous 24 hours. I am too tired to be angry or surprised. In fact, nothing could surprise me at this point concerning Jet Airways. It has been one long clusterf*ck since I left JFK, ten days earlier.

Apparently, when I visited the lost luggage office in DEL, I triggered some kind of karmic tripwire. Despite requesting that my luggage remain in JFK, it is sent to India, and no one is there to receive it.
Photo credit: MHIP

DELHI (DEL)

I arrive at DEL on a straight-shot from SXR, gather my one bag, re-check the stamped claim forms, and set off for the lost luggage office. The line is short; I ponder what I'll do if this office has my snowboards - will I return to Srinagar, or go ahead with the booking to JFK?

Once more I describe the enormous (185cm) snowboard bag and list the contents lost on my outbound flight - Jet Airways FL 229 (JFK-BRU-DEL-SXR) 11 December 2007. Again the story how only one bag arrived with me at SXR 13 December, when the initial lost luggage claim was filed.

I hope that the bag will be found (if the bag were deemed stolen my loss would eclipse the standard compensation) but I'm not prepared for what I'm told: Instead of SXR, the missing bag was initially sent to SEA – Seattle, WA. It was discovered there and returned to Jet Airways on 13 December, where it remained the entire time I was at the Grand Hotel, resting in JFK, awaiting direction.

The bag is found but I'm torn - I want to blow a stack.
Photo credit: MHIP

SXR-DEL, PT. TWO

Departing SXR is an airport dance unlike any other: It begins as you show an onward ticket and join a long line of honking cars at the airport gate. (We skip this line, maybe because of Mr. Hassan). Next, in between the gate and the departure terminal, the taxi, the bags, the passengers and the driver are thoroughly screened. One-hundred yards further the taxi stops at the departure terminal where the entrance requires an additional screening and an onward ticket.

From there I proceed to the airline counter to check-in luggage and get a seat on the plane to Delhi (DEL). The agent finds a seat on an earlier SXR-DEL flight, and I take it. Despite that it is still too early to enter the departure lounge, so passengers must mill around in this forward lobby area. Eventually we mob up only to enter a bottleneck for screening into the departure lounge. My carry-on gets inspected well here, and immediately again thirty feet away, on the other side of the bottleneck.

All of this comes as no surprise - I had done it all 24 hours earlier and then fog cancelled the departing flight. I had also spent an hour or two in the SXR office of Mr. Vijay and his great staff, sorting out all of the official paperwork and stamps I would need to pursue my lost luggage claim in DEL. Marginal weather delayed this flight too, but it finally breaks and then (after each passenger identifies each checked bag) the luggage is loaded up, the passengers buckled in, and the plane is taxiing down the runway to Delhi.
Photo credit: MHIP

SXR-DEL & MR. HASSAN

The skies were neutral and the driver calm; I had time to reflect while I studied the streetscapes of Srinagar. This trip to the airport relaxed me. I had been along this route four times and it was becoming familiar. There was the Zero Bridge, the playing field, the university. There were the barracks. There was a sudden stop, a hitchhiker - Mr. Hassan.

Mr. Hassan of the Tourist Police was my first friend at Srinagar (SXR). He and three others, plus a driver and I, had taxied in from the airport to the Tourist Reception Center (TRC) in town after my inbound flight. At the airport there had been the press of baggage claim, plus tourist registration, and in my case the bonus of a lost luggage report. After that, new arrivals are pinched over by touts for houseboats, houseboats, houseboats and taxis. And as you leave the airport: Mr. Hassan - da mang who makes sure you get where you are going or to the TRC all in one piece.
Photo credit: MHIP

THE HOTEL GRAND MUMTAZ, PT. TWO

Departing Srinagar was proving to be as difficult as arriving had been without the luggage. Still, the cancellation of all the departure flights from SXR yielded a tasty nugget, the highlight of the trip to date: a free stay and meals at the Hotel Grand Mumtaz, Srinagar, transport included.

The Grand Mumtaz took my previous experience of comfort in Srinagar and raised it to a much higher level. I was lodged in a spacious room and ate excellent food. The shower was hot and the pressure strong. The central heat was warm and constant, the cable always worked, the power never went out. I cleaned myself up entirely. The irony was craptaculicious - I was at my Sunday best but the flu had me beat. I stay in on my last night in Srinagar.

In the morning I read the papers over breakfast and wait for the taxi to SXR. It was unclear if planes were flying and the weather looked dubious. The newspaper stories were describing that seasonal fog chaos in DEL was disrupting flights and stranding passengers, so I was warily optimistic as we left the Grand Mumtaz.
Photo credit: MHIP

THE HOTEL GRAND MUMTAZ, SRINAGAR

As the taxi pulled away from the Grand Hotel & Restaurant, I believed I had not seen the last of Srinagar. It turned out I was right.

At 1130 I was handed a boarding pass for SXR to DEL from the good offices at Jet Airways. It was just the beginning: Check-out time is 1200 and the departure flight leaves at 1430. I still had to pay and tip the Grand, arrange a cab and skip to SXR, and go through the airport dance - getting processed, screened, stamped, and patted down - several times over.

We hadn't travelled twenty yards from the Grand when the cabbie was out the door and engaged in a shouting match with another driver who looked ready to slap his beard right off. I was mulling about some other way to the airport when the argument suddenly ended and we were rolling out. I stared at the cabbie and my gaze was returned by goggling saucers of magnified iris. Could glasses be that thick? He told me not to worry about anything - he had been driving a taxi for the past 55 years. (I hope he started at age 10).

We made record time to the airport. Some pedestrians in or near our path almost didn't survive. We went window-to-window with another vehicle, quickly narrowing the distance between us and a huge bull on the center line. It cooperated by staying put and we were past it and on.

There was no need to hurry - after the pat-downs, after the waiting, after five hours it was announced that all flights out of SXR were downgraded from "DELAYED" to "CANCELLED". We would all see one another at SXR again tomorrow, but for now it was back to Srinagar, to the Hotel Grand Mumtaz.
Photo credit: MHIP

HAVING FUN WITH JET AIRWAYS

On arrival at Delhi International (DEL) the transfer to the domestic terminal requires one to pick up checked bags - doesn't matter if they are checked through onward, usually. I sat by the belt until every last bag was gone and all the passengers too. Neither of my two bags appeared. But I was not worried, as I was ignorant of the facts and was only sitting there as a precaution. After all, my bags were checked through to Srinagar (SXR); I didn't know I had to pick up my bags at that point.

After check in (of your bags) at the domestic terminal all checked bags are subsequently screened and laid out on the tarmac. Passengers have to then individually identify each bag or it will not be loaded on the domestic flight. This is exactly when trouble started, when I first learned that my snowboard bag, and all my snowboard equipment, was missing. My other checked bag was there, and after being ID'd it was loaded for the flight to SXR. (I actually forfeited my connecting flight and took the next flight three hours later on the suggestion that it would give the crew time to find the missing bag).

During this bonus layover I learned that not only was my bag missing, but that the bag I did have should not have made it to the domestic terminal in any case - transfers to the domestic terminal requires the pick up of checked bags - doesn't matter if they are checked through onward. Usually. But nonetheless one of my bags was sitting there, on the tarmac. This remains a mystery that no one can explain.

I arrived in SXR on the 13th December, and I have repeatedly (every business day in Srinagar) visited the offices of Jet Airlines to inquire about my luggage. Between the parties in that office, and the Jet Airlines officials at SXR, and the Jet Airlines officials at DEL, no one can determine the whereabouts of the bag containing all of the gear I need for Gulmarg.

Sh*t! F*ck! Repeat!
Photo credit: MHIP