The worst travel experiences of my life.....

hi guys,

Welcome to this blog post on one of the worst travel experiences of my life.... this for for my friends marriage., it was to happen on a place named KODAD in some remote location beyond Vijayawada, the marriage was on 18-aug so I took leave on Friday , it was schedule at night , I thought like I can have a comfortable travel by train and bus on the day and go to the marriage in sharp time, but life is not always easy... it sucks... I had my leave confirmation on Wednesday evening ... I thought of booking the tickets on Thursday morning... I went to online booking ... got the tickets paid the money through HDFC netbanking ... everything went fine till a JavaScript error popped up that had crippled my transaction in the middle .... money has already been debited from my account... but no tickets.... full tension... called up HDFC and irctc... they atlast agreed to restore the money.... I had to go to Southern Railways booking office directly to get the tickets.....

Anyway I got them after long tensions..... now I had to go to office...@ syanptris... huge chunks of work was waiting for me.... something has to go live by monday... but I wont be available through weekend.... chalo kaam karo... hardwork till 1am on Friday... now i get back to home.... next morning i have train... i reached home by around 3 and then ofcourse slept...

Subhae Subhae utthe hi time hogaya 7 odd my train is by 9 odd and travel from pallavaram to the central takes a luxurious 1 hour.... run boy run....

chalo paunch gaya station in cool time but no money... my purse is empty now.... the canara bank ATM in the Chennai central wont work.... i m helpless...

Suren Sir (one of the great faculty members of my college and a good friend of mine... now he is working in some MNC ) was on his way to the staion on the same train... after hearing that i had a sigh of relief.... now i thought like i have some company to suffer with.....

We boarded the train... shared the experiences... was a lot of fun.... atlast i have found someone with time to share whatever thats going on in y life after college....

We made it to vijaywada in good time.... 4:30 or 5 pm... it was evening.... Krishna river was flooding like crazy....  We stepped out off train to the road outside.... there we headed staraight to auto-rick stand... we asked if he can take us to the bus-terminus.... he refused... we stood like stumped.... ( where ever i have went... rick drivers will tell you like it will cost more or atleast will try to cheat you... but this is teh first time that i had to hear something like this... "AUTO RAADHU...." IN A HARSH TONE.... translates as "auto wont come" in telegu....) we found some auto atlast ... but that was damn cheap man.... he charged just a mere Rs. 5 per head for each of us the distance was close to 2~3 kms....

aha ha we reached... the terminus.... but hang on teh confusion begins here.... where is KODAD... i went to the enquiry asked for KODAD (spelled like K-O-DAD) .... she said like that there is no such place there.... then she revealed the correct pronouncation "Kodhadu" (spell like KO-DHA-DU... translates in telegu like some synonym for riverside ... i m not sure)..." goto platforms 25 and 26... u might find some buses there"

No busses here again... Some bus driver ws trying to persuade us to take his bus ( his bus will not take us to kodad but will take us to somewhere from where i cand find busses to kodad.... but that place will waste a lot of my time and money). We dont have time... its SIX already.... i thought like "Marketing ke Makrketing a.... dai ... adangunga da :)"

We got a bus but were unsure whether it will take us there or not.... got in and slept.... that bus driver was sleeping too... he almost went on to crash the bus on a steep curve..... anyway hum bachgayae .... we dont have a choice... "lets believe it takes to kodhadu".... finally we reached kodadhu... we were astonished to find that this place has cars, ATM's and an engineering college tooo (ha ha .... suren knows the joke behind it).... It was crazy man.... the Image we had for kodad was a very remote village with nothing but cows and farms... but it was far more advanced....

Some of my friend's (bride's) friend came to take through to the place where we are gonna stay.... it was a place (no comments about it...) ... deepak* reached there in the meanwhile.... nothing crazy... this guy never took a leave... cameback staright from office... anyways... no harsh feelings ...
{ * Deepak works in SCM for Infosys and is currently havin his training at hyderabad}

Awesome man... marraige was over by 1 am on sat.... wished her all the best and found our way back.... my eyes were burining ... i havent slept for more than 40 hours by then....

No the return saga beging.... Morning train is at 6 AM at Vijayawada..... Its 2.30 AM here in Kodad.... We have been waiting for aroun 1 hour... no bus has crossed us.. thought like we will be in trouble if we dont get a train....I have to reach chennai at the earliest.... bcoz i need to help a friend to make his national level event live at Chennai Trade center on Sunday....

Finally we got the bus.... made it 2 railway station... by 4 odd...

We didnt have tickets 2 chennai.... I thought like we can travel in PINAKINI Express... i is by all means on the most emptiest trains.... i have travelled in it... u can sleep and travel till chennai in the general ... its that empty.... so we took a General Ticket...

now our stomach's were in trouble... no PROPER food for more that 18 hours.... after a little search we found some place which can sell us food .... had some idli's.... he asked if we need "COOLING WATER" (office memories of awdesh asking for it.... ha ha)...

Got the train... and now i came to know about the  mistake i did.... it was the worst thing i had ever done to travel in General.... the compartment got stuffed with all kinds of nonsense.... fights, fun,chaos,,, everything that u could imagine..... i dont have any chioce.... i haev to travel by it.... If i had time i would have stepped out and took some other train.... it was that crazy....

Making it to chennai was like winning a nobel prize... ui stepped in to chennai... and started jumping in happiness....

Trip to KODAD may be one of the worst travel experiences in my life.... but it also made one of our friends happy by showing our presence at one of the gretest moments in her life.... Cheers for that....