bharat

jazda na rowerze, jazda motocyklem, pływanie, plażowanie, biwakowanie, kulinaria, dzika przyroda, pomniki, teatr

For me it would have to be on my trip to Himachal in December 2004. Here’s what happened:

We were into the third day of our four day long trip to Himachal, in the after noon I was leading the group and we came across a bridge on the right hand turn, took the turn at 60kmph only to find spilt diesel/petrol in the middle of the bridge. Before I knew it I was on the road sliding along my bike with one of my friend doing the same behind me, fortunately he didn’t crashed into me.

Got up with a sore knee, my friend was ok and so was his bike with only a cracked fairing; however it turned out the fall knocked out my bikes rear breaks! So there I was on my third trip in the hills, on the third day of the ride with bruised knee and no rear breaks. Since we were in remote parts of Himachal we couldn’t find a mechanic to fix the breaks, I started riding slowly behind the pack.

At about 7o’Clock in the evening we were passing through a forest, with the group several kms ahead I was trying my best to catch up on the single lane broken road with gravel filled turns. While riding through a straight section I decided to put my bikes headlight on high beam to see if there was something on the road, I did noticed something walking on the road, I decided to again put the bike on high beam and discovered it was a leopard!

This freaked me out and I decided to rip a little, but 100mtr later there was a turn in the road for which I had to lower my speed, with only the front break at my disposal I tried my best to slow down, but the turn was filled with gravel and my bikes front wheel locked causing my to crash face first. Thanks to the helmet I was wearing I wasn’t hurt except for my already bruised knee which got bruised again, with the knowledge that leopard was only 100mtr or so behind me I tried my best to get the bike off the ground ASAP and started riding. I had to ride for another half an hour to finally catch with the rest of the gang, during the half an hour long ride I only came across 1 jeep.

A few years ago I made the mistake of flying Air India and like the other thread about getting bumped and rewarded for it, Air India would have none of that.

Years ago on this trip, I left from the US and was flying straight through to Delhi with a stop in Germany. I was told everything was all set when I boarded. The ticket agent even let me pick out a seat on my connecting flight and I was all good to go.

After a long ride into Germany I arrive to find that my connecting flight with Air India did not exist. It wasn't cancelled or delayed but just never existed and I was holding a ticket to a flight to nowhere.

The Air India counter was just shutting down when I arrived and I questioned them about it and they couldn't give me an answer except for "we will try to get on another flight tomorrow" but "this flight today never existed". My luggage as I found out later was being sent to customs and locked up, so I had nothing with me. I asked Air India if they could put me up in a hotel for the night, since they sold me the ticket to a flight that didn't exist. They're reply was "no" but you can sleep in the airport. I thought okay maybe there are beds here, when I asked them where I could sleep they pointed to a bench by the window and then immediately shutdown their office and left for the day. I ended up paying for my own hotel in Germany and wearing the same clothes again (and now I know to always carry my toothbrush with me).