Fuel Strike!

I flew into Mumbai during a terrorist attack and on Thursday, the day before I left, the fuel drivers went on strike! I booked a taxi to leave the hotel at 2am and at 1am the manager called to say the taxi I booked was out of gas and he managed to find me one but I needed to come now! I jumped up, dressed, finished packing up and rushed out to see the streets of Mumbai completely quiet without any traffic.... This was for real. I immediately wondered about about plane fuel - hmmm, how is this going to work? I got in the cab to be informed that the price was now $700 rupees instead of the standard $350. This was a problem, I did not have that cash, nor did I want to walk to an ATM at that time. When I asked him via the manager translating if he would take visa he asked the manager what was a visa - oh dear god, I knew I was in trouble! Needless to say when I showed him my wallet was empty after giving him $450 he relented and we started on our way! There were hundreds of cabs lining the streets by the gas stations with the drivers sleeping and the airport was madness with people stranded. It was a quick trip though!

My earlier worry was substantiated as the flight was 1.5 hours late leaving in order to ration the fuel amongst all the flights that had to leave before 8am... At this point I was hoping we were not going to drop out of the sky - no seriously, we ended up landing in Bangkok to refuel to make it to Hong Kong which is where I am right now writing my last blog of this most amazing trip!

I hope you enjoyed vicariously travelling with me. I thoroughly enjoyed my first go at blogging and have already started to think about my next journey and the blog title :) For those of you in Vancouver; see you over the next week or so. For those from elsewhere chat to you in the live soon!

Om Shanti (peace),
Tracy xoxo