My greatest airport fear came to fruition when we arrived at night in Amritsar and exited the airport. After each prior city arrival, we were greeted with a friendly sign outside the rail station or airport with "Mr. Jason and Audrey". That sign meant safe passage to our hotel and no wrangling with random taxi drivers. Well, in Amritsar there was no sign. We got out there and stood awkwardly trying to find our ticket to ride, but no go. After a few minutes, one of the other drivers holding a sign for a tour group asked if we needed help. We explained the situation and I pulled out the number for Bilal who had been setting up all our travel arrangements. The man was kind enough to call Bilal and we worked things out. Bilal hadn't read my last email carefully about our arrival time and was expecting us later in the evening. About 20 minutes later we got our driver, white scarf and all. He whisked us off and all was good.
The saving grace to all this was arrival at the newest hotel. This would be our last residence for four days. The Ranjit Svaasa Haveli had multiple levels of red brick architecture with canopied balconies all over. There were roof terraces and eclectic seating areas with rustic furniture tucked into every outside space. Each passageway was decorated with herb gardens and splaying green plants that you need to duck under to move about.
Wait.... okay, okay, that was my observation the next morning. How did I feel when I got to our room? I was totally strung out and disoriented. We had spent the last day navigating the Indian airport system, which requires a full security check even for plane transfers. I needed beer and Internet and my jammies. The beer came promptly from a kind young gentleman named Raj. Beer, check.
Now I needed to find the Internet so I could feel connected to the outside world and let people know we had survived. I found the security password written in the back of the guest book. "Connecting....Connecting...., Failed to connect." In my head I was screaming the biggest "Khaaannnn!" like scream. I could not cope. What to do now? I thought for a few minutes and remembered that the last hotel we were at had not set up the security on their Wifi router. So, of course I donned my Matthew Broderick "War Games" hacker gear and went to work to find me some Internets. I'll skip the technical details here lest you learn the secrets, but I manually connected to the router from my phone and reset it. After that my wife was able to connect and there was probably a collective sigh from the rest of the addict's rooms. Internet, check.
I felt a sense of empowerment and gleefully put on my jammies. Since our luggage had arrived earlier at the airport unharmed, I had regained control over my life. I had a true smile on my face. Jammies, check.
We finished our beers, our Internet fix, and settled into our bed. I tossed and turned all night though. The disorientation of the day at the airport and the journey to our new abode had left me unsure where and when I was. We were in Amritsar, a city just south of the Indian-Pakistan border. It's a place of uncertainty and has a history of conflict. I think I was feeling it. Let's hope my next greatest fear doesn't come true.
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