October 24, 2013 - Taxi Driver Saved the Day

Looking back, it is kind of amazing that this happened.

So here I was, planning my first trip outside India since I arrived and my first trip to the Middle East. My friend lives near Dubai and when would I be this close to UAE again? After doing some initial searches and ruling out Abu Dhabi as an airport destination due to lack of well-timed flights, I decided that I wanted to take Emirates Airlines (the nice one) to Dubai because it was only a little more expensive and it would be a nifty treat.

After checking out the usual suspects (makemytrip.com and ixigo.com), I found I had the urge to go with the cheapest and settled on an Air India flight that left at 4:30pm. All seemed well. A little over two weeks before my departure date, I got an SMS from MakeMyTrip telling me that the flight was now leaving at 8:40pm and that my return flight did not leave until after midnight (getting me back to my flat after four in the morning when I had work the next day.) Meanwhile, that Emirates flight had nearly tripled in price.

After some scrambling around, involving spending some time on hold with Make My Trip (whom I had been on hold on with a lot lately due to the Srinagar fiasco) and Air India, I cancelled my flight, got a full refund (!) in a timely (!!!) manner, and booked myself on a new option: Air Arabia to Sharjah, which is basically a suburb of Dubai, leaving at 1:10pm.

All seemed well.

Then I arrived to the check-in counter.

To make a long story short (too late) Air Arabia did not issue me a boarding pass. They required proof that I had registered at the Foreign Registration Office when I arrived, which of course I had done. Eight months previous. My documentation literally sitting in a drawer since I had received it. The woman in charge behind the desk did make a couple calls on my behalf, but for naught. I was not allowed to get on that flight without proving I had registered at the office.

I stood there in confused shock for some time. How was this possible? I had my passport. I had my PAN card (my India tax card.) They really expected me to carry the two full-size sheets of a handwritten form on stapled paper that comprised my FRRO around with me? They had no other way to confirm I had done this? Apparently not. I think what stunned me the most is how I had never heard about this on any forum I’d perused, site I’d visited, or book I’d read (and I’d read quite a few.) Possibly, these sources did mention the need for this and I had simply forgotten after all this time? Or assumed anything that I was supposed to carry around would, of course, be in convenient card form like *everything else I need* is.

It was about 11:30am. My flat was an hour away by taxi. There was simply no way possible for me to make it back by 1:10 (I need to start giving other people copies of my flat key for times like these). I had to get on another flight if I wanted to carry on with this trip. Figuring there was nothing I could do until I had my FRRO in hand, I headed for the door.

THEY DID NOT LET ME OUT THE DOOR!

It is in moments like these where I realize that India is a more dangerous country than I thought. You need proof you are booked on a flight to even enter the building. And once in, there’s no turning around! Stress was compounding and I was nearing breakdown. I felt the urge to hurry but I Could. Not. Leave.

The guards at the door said I could only leave if an airport employee personally signed me out. I was in such a state of helpless panic, they finally had someone accompany me back to the Air Arabia counter to explain the situation and confirm that I wasn’t…. I don’t even want to imagine the reasons they could think of for denying me exit.

It seemed to take a ridiculously long time (I’m sure it was not all that long) before I was confirmed, signed out (passport number was required) and able to exit. Luckily, there was an elevator that led down to the Arrivals level where all the taxis were. I had never actually taken a taxi from the airport on my own, but I knew they were there and I barely cared at this point if they overcharged me.

At first I was surprised, as I stood near some taxis, that no one was calling out, “taxi, ma’am” then I realized these were hired from a nearby desk. I got myself very quickly onto a Meru taxi. For a reasonable rate. (Good to know this is here for future reference!)

I proceeded to spend the entire taxi ride on the phone (and on hold with) Make My Trip to both cancel my original trip and book myself on a new one. (Insert mini-panic I felt when the call dropped just as he listed my alternate flight options. The thought of calling back and starting the process all over made me cry. I begged him to call back. And, he did.) Looked like I was going to get to try Emirates after all!

The Emirates flight left at 4:15pm. I got the last seat on the flight. (No joke.)

But I had to reach the check-in counter 45 minutes before the flight so I was cutting it close, no question, and I soon realized there was only one way I was even going to have a chance of making it.

I was going to have to keep this taxi driver. No matter what.

The kind man (who had probably been listening to my long-winded reservation conversations wherein I also booked a return one-stop flight on Oman Air, the possibility of keeping the latter half of my original reservation not occurring to me) agreed to wait for me as I ran up to my flat. I left my luggage in the car as collateral, but also did not pay him, just in case there’d been confusion. The whole time, I had my phone to my ear talking to a very patient man on Make My Trip who couldn’t accept my Axis bank (local bank) debit card over the phone to pay but also could not charge my U.S. credit card until I had given him written (e-mailed) permission for that amount.

Guess when my phone suddenly refused to connect to Hotmail? Yep.

Luckily, my FRRO was just where I left it. Now I had to beg the taxi driver to take a side trip – luckily a short side trip – to my office where I could send MakeMyTrip an email. And print out a boarding pass while I was at it. Because, knowing how the day I was going, I feared I would be denied entry into Delhi International because I could not connect to Hotmail and prove on my phone that I did, in fact, have an e-ticket.

There was a massive amount of traffic and parked cars on the street of my office. Even now, I have no idea why. I’ve never seen it that crowded before or since. I was concerned that my driver would not have a place to wait and would give up on me. But I still had not paid him. And I still left my luggage in the car. So I hoped he would find a way as I ran up to the office, luckily no one bothering me about my ID or keycard.

It seemed to take forever for the payment to go through and the e-ticket to be issued. Luckily, it was lunchtime, so I was not wrangled into conversations – work or otherwise. The printer (THANK GOD) worked. I was literally jogging out the door with printouts, my returning co-workers looking at me, a little confused, and meanwhile, I crossed my fingers that my taxi driver was still there, waiting.

He was.

It was now about 1:40pm. Then we hit traffic on NH 24. Like you do.

I looked at my phone a lot, checking the time. When the driver needed to stop for gas, I begged BEGGED him to keep going, saying I’d give him extra money, because I was cutting it so close. He understood enough to keep on going, though I was never clear on just how much of my English he understood.

It was before 3:00 when we finally entered the area of the airport. But it still seemed to be so far away. I was a little nervous when I saw the signs for Terminal 1 and Terminal 3, Domestic and International respectively, and the driver started toward Terminal 1. I mean, the driver must have known that he was just taking me back to where we both started, right? But I could not help but ask why we had just driven by the exit to Terminal 3.

“It’s a faster road,” he promised.

“Okay, I trust you!” I said. It was after 3:00pm now. The flight was at 4:15. Indeed, he went past Terminal 1 to get to 3.

As we neared the terminal (seriously, why was it not getting closer faster) I took out cash ahead of time. 1,000 rupees for the way there (which probably only came to 800+), 1,000 for the way back, and 1,000 because he saved my butt (and made the side trip to my office and waited for a quarter hour there.) Best $50 I’ve ever spent. I’m thinking the driver probably agrees.

As soon as the car stopped, my arms already around my bag, I handed him the cash, quickly explained the breakdown, encountered no objection, then basically ran to the terminal, scanning for the shortest line at the several doors, jumping ahead of someone, waiting while the guard confirmed, then booked it to Check-in counter H. I practically collapsed in front of the Emirates desk, panting.

“Wow, I didn’t expect anyone else,” the polite man said. “There’s only five minutes left.”

EPILOGUE

I made it!

At first, I was thinking about what an awful turn of events this day had been. But then it occurred to me that it was actually extremely serendipitous. Consider the following:

Goal: To reach Dubai on Thursday evening.
Fact: I was completely ignorant about the need for my FRRO documentation.

I am pretty sure there is actually NO OTHER WAY I could have met my goal given my lack of knowledge. If I had booked on Emirates first… If Air India hadn’t changed their time… if I hadn’t switched to Air Arabia… I would have never made it to the airport with sufficient time to book another flight.

And, in case you were wondering, the nice young man at the Emirates counter did need to see my FRRO paperwork. Now I know. And now you do, too, for next time you domicile in South Asia.

(UAE blog should be up sometime in the next few weeks. Less a blog and more an ode to my first avocado in nine months. And the jaw-droppingness of hearing the MakeMyTrip hold music suddenly playing in an Abu Dhabi mall. Well, okay, I’ll talk about that tall building as well. If you insist.)