Amritsar - Eat. Sleep. Pray

Amristar
Sep 2015

Quite an eventful trip it was. Although it was a weekend trip, it felt like I was there for a week. The trip was all about eating good food, sleeping well, and enjoying the blessed feeling of being around the Gurudwara :)

The trip started on a hilarious and anxious note when I booked an Ola cab which was suppose to first pick my friend, followed by me and then drive us to the airport. Due to miscommunication, the driver finished the trip when he arrived at my place. Even though I was sitting in the cab, Ola app was assigning me a new driver (who was ~10 mins away) when I was trying to book again. The good part was that the current driver willingly helped us in coordinating with another driver, and dropped us halfway to the new assigned cab. The boarding had to start at 8:10, and at 7:30, we were still ~11 kms away from the T3 airport. The new cab was very dirty but all I wanted was to reach the airport. I knew we would reach at very last moment, but at least I was relieved we managed to sort out the confusion. I was continuously asking driver to drive fast so we can reach on time. The dashboard on this cab was broken, and was continuously showing the needle at 20km/hr. It was enough to give us tension, and in no time, we had another blunder. Our cab stopped and driver got down and started looking at the bonnet (hood). Turns out that the car did not slow down on a speed breaker, and hence this disaster. My first instinct was to look for another cab in the app, and the next available cab was showing ~15 minutes away. I was thinking of different ways to reach airport as every second was reducing our chances to catch this flight . Fortunately, the car started and driver was back on seat. The driver decided to not drive beyond his usual 40km/hr; once bitter, twice shy. We eventually reached airport at 8:05. Since I did a web check-in, I quickly dropped my bag, collected boarding pass and rushed to the boarding gate. The boarding started couple of minutes late, but the entire journey to that boarding gate was enough to give me an adrenaline rush.

This drama did not really end here. The flight was one of the most turbulent 45-mins flight I ever had. . To add to it, I was traveling with a friend who was flying for the first time. We could not grab a seat together, but I later figured it obviously scared her a lot.

It was all forgotten once we reached there.  The peaceful visit to Gurudwara, the delicious Kesar ka dhaba, the delectable langar, thirst-quenching Ahuja's lassi ,  shopping for phulkaris & the rickshaw rides - it was all worth it. The hotel (City Park) was 2 mins walk from Gurudwara, and did not disappoint us in providing us with a clean, decent room.