australia – Page 2 – Uma's life and thoughts

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We were really tired after the million flights and we wanted to get to our hotel asap. We were concerned if we could find our driver from Acron Waterfront amongst this massive crowd. Just then we saw the name board with our names on. Hard to explain our feelings at that time. It was a combination of relief and excitement.

We walked to our van. I don’t think it was parked legally. But I think that was the norm. Our van started off surrounded by a lot honking. I put my seat belt on. My sister in law Jan tried to put hers. But her side belt was broken. I joked that was her punishment for making me marry her brother.

Our actual holiday was now starting. Our driver didn’t speak much English. But seemed like a nice guy. He smiled a lot for the million questions we were asking.

We were trying take in all the scenary of Goa. Looked pretty green. But we also saw snippets of poverty. Modern billboards adorned the sides of the freeway. Battle between modernisation and poverty were rather evident.

Poverty is confronting, especially if you are from the western world. But, only a few of us want to really get involved. Most of us our sympathisers from a distance. Jan and I belonged to the same hypocrisy club.

We were hoping and praying that our hotel was somewhere nice. Acron was on the other side of Baga bridge or beach or both. It was a fair distance away from the airport . The road was becoming more remote. Our concerns were hightening.

Eventually we entered into Acron. It looked really beautiful. We were greated by more smiling faces at their outdoor reception/ office area. We were immediately offered a drink. I think it was Gauva juice. We were sceptical about accepting the drink due to all the warnings re water. We were assured this was clean and safe. I took a few sips. It did taste nice but was scared to take in more sips.

We booked the garden view rooms, as they were a few bobs cheaper. It was still pretty early in the morning, but they announced that they had a Waterview room ready and they were going to give it to us and didn’t charge us anything extra for early check in nor for the upgrade of the room.

We were both so tired this gesture was heaven sent. Good start to our holiday. But…

passport

Passport – check, Tickets – check, Phone – check, Phone – charger check, Ipad – check, Thyroxin – check. I was anxious that I was going to leave something behind. I was already anxious about this trip but to make things worse, just days before the departure, the Indian Government called in all the 500RS notes. This in turn caused a massive shortage of money in the country. Also couldn’t buy any Indian currency in Australia. And we heard reports that there were massive queues at atm machines and banks. “just our luck” we thought.

I was anxious of the unknown safety issues, I was excited about meeting my buddy and having a well earned break, I was sad about leaving hubby, son and my baby dog, (well I had to include and hubby and son to avoid judgement. But then again no shame in admitting that I was glad to lose them for a week or so to get a bit of rest, but my doggy on the other hand, I am really going to miss him). Those droopy eyes were telling me “mummy don’t leave me”.

Australian immigration – it took me all of 5 minutes to clear. Just like Jim Jeffreys said, Aussie airport and it’s security practices/measures are rather unique. Not exactly unique but definitely very different to most other airports. Don’t get me wrong, it is safe as anywhere can be. But, just don’t have the same panic and stress ridden atmosphere. The guy checking your passport, no sorry there is no guy checking your passport, a machine does matching for you. You have almost no human contact. You see plenty of humans, but no one seems to care about you, they just want you to just piss off, without giving chance to form a queue. You will be rushed through automatic sliding door after door and you are now way too early for your flight.

Took my tablet out and started to write, continuation of my story “friendship and war…” well I haven’t settled on the heading yet. With all the travel plans I hadn’t touched this for sometime. Read the last page I had written, did some editing. Then continued on with the story. Couple of times I stopped and glanced around to see what everyone else was doing. It looked like they were practicing boredom.

Finally time to board. Once again I had to smile sheepishly at the young good looking guy, well not sure if he was good looking, but he was definitely tall and ask him if he could put my hand luggage up in the overhead locker. He was only too happy to oblige. Again not sure if he was happy as such, but nevertheless helped the short damsel in distress.

The problem with living in Australia is that, it is really down, down down there. And also it is a such a huge country. And if you are from South Australia, it takes nearly 3 hours before you can leave your own fricking country. I watched a movie and some comedy skit on a tiny screen, with screen moving as per the front persons movements. It was better to get back to writing. I put the tablet on my lap rather than on the moving tray table.

Drinks cart was a welcome interruption. “Sav Blanc” didn’t taste like any “Sav Blanc ” I’ve ever tasted. But it was free. Also, this was the beginning of the “girls” holiday. So, I convinced myself, “holiday begins now”. So rubbish Sav blanc or not I had to have it. But all in all it wasn’t too bad a flight. Spoke to hubby from the airport. Sent a couple of messages to Jan. But she didn’t answer. She must have been still mid air.

I did some window shopping. I planned what to buy on my return journey. Had a cup of tea, a massage, visited the butterfly garden and time passed. Time for my next flight. The one that I was most anxious and nervous about. Mumbai here I come.

Cont…

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