JAN 1, 16 .. HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM INDIA .. WE’RE HAPPY TO BE HERE ..

By Cap Chastain January 1, 2016 DRAMA, Good Lord God, HOLIDAYS / SPECIAL DAYS, INDIA - Omnibus, PATTI WRITES

BABA KAPS SAYS: Any airline flight that takes off successfully and arrives safely is A GREAT FLIGHT!

So Patti and I enjoyed a great flight from Hong Kong to Delhi this afternoon. Can you believe this: We now have our India Vodafone Cell Phones up and successfully working.

BABA KAPS SAYS: If nothing changes then .. NOTHING CHANGES.

To this point-in-time I am basically the ONLY author here. I want Patti to join me by contributing some of her thoughts and feelings about this journey to India.

Therefore .. I have asked Patti to write a few words for you about her impressions upon being back in India for the first time since Feb – Apr 1996.

Take it away My Dear One.

PATTI SAYS: Off the plane, in the terminal, all is orderly, neat and not as crowded as I had expected.  Got money, got two phones set up, and pre-paid for a taxi to our hotel.  We stepped out of the terminal. This was the India I remembered! LOTS of people, constant chatter and movement, a literal army of taxis. Climbing into our taxi, we were off.  People, PEOPLE, sitting beside the road, walking, hitch-hiking.  One mini-van (about six people capacity) stopped for hitch-hikers and literally twelve or fourteen people tried to cram inside even once it was obvious that one more blade of straw would not fit in there.  A bit farther down the road, we came to a bus rapidly moving through traffic with three young men standing on the steps of the bus. Inside the bus there was a cadre of people at the windows beside the doorway grasping their hands frantically trying to keep them from being dropped in the rapid traffic. Welcome back to India!!

We had two young men in the front of our taxi, one was riding ‘shotgun’ for the driver. They wove our way through the incredible traffic jams and eventually delivered us to our hotel. SUCCESSFULLY safe!  India IS A TRIP!!

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DRAMA ..

CAP LOST HIS PASSPORT!!

This deserves a paragraph of its own. Cap carries our passports inside a small nylon zipper-bag attached by a small chain around his neck. As we were about five minutes from the airport, Cap asked me if I had given him my passport back. I replied I had. Cap checked the passport bag and discovered that HIS passport was not there.  Scrambling frantically, he checked in his backpack, re-checked the passport bag several times, looked around us on the cab floor, and repeated this scenario again several times. The passport truly was missing.  The last place he recalled having it was at the Vodafone counter IN THE TERMINAL.  He told the taxi driver we had to go back to the airport.  FORTUNATELY, the Vodafone clerk had given Cap a number to call him if he had any problems with the phone.  Cap had the cab driver call his number, the clerk answered, and Cap asked about his passport.  YES, it was there, so we proceeded to return to the airport. The driver negotiated the incredible traffic jam of other cabs waiting at the airport and we waited for the clerk to bring the passport to the curb (we could not get into the terminal again).  After what seemed like an eternity (it was at least 20 minutes), the clerk came out with the passport. Cap and I both breathed a HUGE sigh of relief.  We dodged several days of reporting a lost passport and the effort involved in getting a replacement.  Passport in hand, we began the drive to our hotel, end of DRAMA!

Signing Off .. Patti ..

More to Follow .. Smiles .. Patti and Cap ..