Getting to India

Decades ago, I booked FIT travel, which stands for “foreign independent travel”, meaning leisure trips abroad without an escort or fixed package structure. One of my FIT travel agents said he never met anyone else who travels as much as I do yet hates to fly as much as I do.

FIT travel doesn’t exist anymore. Now, nearly everyone books a package tour or stays at a resort. The few of us that enjoy wondering aimlessly around the world book our own travel.

All of us find air travel stressful! Me especially.

I failed miserably at avoiding stress on my flight to India.

I had made arrangements for a driver from Emirates to bring me from my hotel to the airport last night. I waited at the entrance to the hotel for 30 minutes. I checked with the bellhop desk multiple times. The driver never showed up. So, I gave up and took a taxi.

It never occurred to me to turn on my cell phone to find out what happened to my driver. It’s just not part of my universe.

The rest of the world is tethered to their cell phones. To me, my cell phone is a memory device. I use it to remember where am I and what I need to do. After my stroke, my short term memory is shot. I don’t have alzheimers or dementia but I have a severe case of senioritis.

I survive by taking photos of everything. Photo showing the name of my hotel. Photo of my hotel room door with the room number clearly visible. I have to trust my memory to my cell phone.

I normally leave my cell phone in Airplane mode to save its battery. I almost never use it as a phone.

At the airport, the Emirates staff investigated. The driver claims he was there and waited 30 minutes. He claims the hotel staff had never heard of me. I’m guessing that he went to the wrong hotel.

When I tried to check in at the airport, they said that I couldn’t check in without my eVisa for India. I couldn’t find my printed copy. I couldn’t find it on my cell phone. I was able to find my application for the eVisa on my cell phone but not the eVisa itself. I have no idea what I did with it.

She sent me to the service desk. Fortunately they were extremely helpful. They used the number on my application to find the actual eVisa which they sent to my phone and printed. I now had a digital copy and a printed copy of my eVisa and headed for my gate.

I finally made it to my seat on the plane with exactly two minutes to spare! If I hadn’t been flying business class, I would not have made my flight.

My flight was uneventful, which is the most I ever hope for. I spent the time watching the movie “No Time to Die”. I can’t tell you why I didn’t like the movie without spoilers. But, as a lifelong 007 fan, I didn’t like the ending.

When I got to the immigration desk in India, I couldn’t find my printed eVisa. I have no idea how I lost it so quickly.

When I looked for the digital copy on my cell phone, I couldn’t find my cell phone. Since I distinctly remember leaving my cell phone in Flight mode before takeoff and I didn’t have it to enter the country, I knew I must have left it on the plane.

I couldn’t go back to the plane because airlines never allow anyone to reenter a plane. I couldn’t even walk to the plane because guards forbid anyone exiting the immigration queue through the entrance. I couldn’t pass immigration because I had neither the printed nor the virtual copy of my eVisa. I was stuck in limbo. Not yet legally in any country.

I explained the problem to one of the guards. He went off in search of someone from Emirates. Fortunately everyone at the airport speaks at least some English. My translation device is, of course, on my phone.

I sat down and waited. Eventually someone from Emirates came over to me. She called the flight attendants on the plane and asked them to look.

They found my phone but insisted on bringing it to the lost and found deck, which, of course, is on the other side of immigration.

It took a lot of patience to explain that their standard procedure wouldn’t work.

Since then, I’ve had someone reprint my eVisa.

I’m now safely in India.