Today we had to fly from Manali to Delhi to catch our connecting flight to KL. Problems started at 5.45am! We had asked to pay the account the night before as we had to leave early but all the ATM's in town (the whole 2 of them) were not working, as well as this a power outage at the hotel meant they didn't have any credit card facility. They said not to worry too much as hopefully the credit card would come back online before we left. Sure enough they phoned our room at 9pm to say it was back on so M went down to pay. They said don't worry pay tomorrow, M said but what if it isn't working at 6am, no problem it will be fine they said ..... hmph!
This morning you guessed it, no credit card facility so M walked into town to get cash but the ATM's were still not working - and we had a plane to catch. Another problem was that the taxi we were using to get to the airport was owned by the hotel and they wouldn't let us leave because we hadn't paid the bill! You can imagine how well K was coping with this John Cleese moment! K was yelling things like "this is not our problem as we wanted to pay last night!" and stormed out the front with luggage in tow trying to hail a taxi - not possible at 6am on New Year's Day! M suggested that we get the cash from an ATM at the airport and give it to the driver to bring back - but this wasn't good enough, the guy at reception decided to come with us just to make sure!
So we headed off, and on the way we stopped at other non working ATM's with the staff member going into the cubicle & staring over M's shoulder at what he was doing! We eventually found a working ATM, paid the money and made it to the airport.
Plane was meant to leave at 8.30am .... at 9.45 they announced the flight was cancelled and there would not be another flight until tomorrow! Apparently a bird had hit the plane and they didn't have any engineers available until one came up from Delhi! Panic for many as so many people were catching international flights in Delhi. Ours wasn't until 11.10pm so we thought we had a chance. We caught a taxi with a Brazilian girl Maike from Germany and started heading down the mountain to Chandigarh to catch a 5.30pm flight to Delhi. Maike had to make a flight to Mumbai at 9.20pm to make her international flight.
We arrived in Chandigarh at 4pm with one 10 minute toilet/food stop for the whole day - only to be told that flights were cancelled due to fog and they couldn't be sure the 5.30pm flight would leave. We decided it was too risky and would continue the 5 hour drive to Delhi. Problem was we had to change taxi and get more money, this all took over half an hour. Maike phoned the airlines and they said the 5.30 flight was going so we raced back to the airport - but once we got their it wasn't - all were cancelled! Panic set in again as we had to get the second taxi back so we could head to Delhi. We had now wasted over an hour and it was doubtful Maika was going to make her flight! We finally made it to Delhi at 10.50pm, 15 minutes before our check in closed and way too late for Maike. To say we were frazzled is an understatment and K does not cope well when things don't go as she has planned! But we were welcomed at check in with flower garlands and a complimentary red spot (which we promptly washed off) - and at least we did make it onto the 5 hour flight to Malaysia!
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