xii - 29 May - Back to Mumbai....

Within half an hour of our reaching the Leh hotel, the two members from the trek team who had embarked on their return journey on Friday night reached by a cab. Thankfully the "patient" had recovered fully. We visited Lamayuru restaurant for our dinner and reached the hotel rooms looking forward to a sound sleep.

Needless to say, the sleep we had on 28th night at the hotel in Leh was the best one we had in the past 10 days. Sound sleep, undisturbed. But on 29 morning we had to check out of the hotel at 430 AM and reach Leh airport for our flight at 655 AM. Our route to Mumbai was - (1) Leh to Srinagar by Go First (2) Srinagar to Delhi by Go First & (3) Delhi to Mumbai by Vistara. Leh to Srinagar & Srinagar to Delhi were sort of connected flights and between Srinagar to Delhi & Delhi to Mumbai we had a waiting time of over 2 hours.

Leh airport was 10 minutes drive from the hotel. We reached the airport by 450 AM, joined the queue and checked into the airport. 4 of the Trekk(iy)ers Sridhar, Dr Swamy, Vaidy & myself were headed to Mumbai & Ramesh was taking a flight to Jammu. As Ramesh's flight was at around 730 AM, he decided to join us to the airport with his luggage. 


The flight was late and we finally reached Srinagar. The security was very strict at Srinagar. Though our check in baggage would be shifted by the airline internally, the passengers still had to clear the security check. The passenger footfall was heavy, but we managed to clear the same and reach the hallway. There seemed to be some issue with the aircraft and we were requested to wait in the hallway. A while later an airline official informed that there was a technical issue with the aircraft and till such time the pilot is not satisfied with the same the flight will not take off. By this time a couple of other passengers who had connecting flight with very little buffer time started getting uneasy and started raising their voices. The airline official was very strict and in sometime arranged for the hallway to be vacated and for all the passengers to be taken back to the waiting area. As the flight was getting delayed and since they were not sure what time the flight is likely to take off, he promised refreshments once we reach the lounge. It took us another 15 minutes to come out of the security cleared area and reach the outer area.

But in the meanwhile the official got a call on his walkie talkie that the technical issue has been sorted out & that the passengers can board the aircraft. However to do this we had to clear the security again. Finally after clearing the security, we reached the terminal and approached the boarding gate. With a silent prayer we boarded the aircraft and sincerely wished the flight to take off without much delay, which it did.



After reaching Delhi we had to retrieve our checked in luggage from the concerned belt in Terminal 1 & move towards Terminal 3 from where our Vistara flight to Mumbai was scheduled to take off in another 90 minutes. This we did, boarded the flight,  had lunch in the aircraft and landed in Mumbai at 425PM.


As I alighted from the aircraft, I thought probably today was the first time I traveled in 3 different aeroplanes within a span of 12 hours! 

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