A Travel from Chennai to Dallas

The 13th February 2007, which hallmarked as Valentine's Day Eve was about full of tight schedules -- last minutes packings. My trip to Irving, Dallas was scheduled in the night of 13th February. The Valentines' Celebration was mid-air though. :) I started off from home at about 1800 hours to Chennai Domestic Airport, since my flight route was like Chennai - Bengaluru - Frankfurt - Dallas Fort Worth Airport. Well. It might be surprising for one that normally any one takes Chennai or Mumbai even from Bengaluru. Let us be bit different and hence this different route though. This is on a lighter vein. The underlying fact is that ticket availability at the last minute booking dictated the route.

Myself and my friend (Muthu Rajesh) reached Bengaluru Hindustan Airport at about 2230 hours. Had it been even dusk, my Lavanya would have come to see off. But I had asked her not to since it was too late and the week was witnessing sporadic incidents in the city due to Cauvery Water Tribunal judgement issue. With brief bites and sips at the Airport Coke counter, we decided to checkin at the start of Valentine's Day (14th February, 2007 00:00 hours). All checked in baggages fine. Now some fun with Bangalore Immigration Counter. I had some interesting observations with Immigration Counter too. And one good thing I wanted to suggest to Indian Immigration on the politeness they should learn. They are actually facing and welcoming the world to the country. They just can not afford to keep barking at everyone. I had a distinctly different, calm-and-poised handling of people to be observed in Dallas Fort Worth Airport by US Customs and Border Protection, which is part of Department of Homeland Security. I really admired the small poster which carried the thoughts like we keep the doors of the nation open but at the same time carry a greater onus and responsibility to secure and protect our nation. We would discuss this in greater depth and this would be a topic befitting Views and Reviews.

The flight started off at about 0300 hours and about 0430 or so, as the television map in the flight indicated, we crossed the Indian borders on the Afghanistan/Russia route. Though not excellent, the flight had good palatable Asian Vegetarian dishes that could address the in-flight hunger.  We reached Frankfurt at about 0830 (German Local Time) and the connecting flight to Dallas was in about two hours. There wasn't any plans in Frankfurt because of short time for the connecting flight. The next flight was in turn a long travel. While Bengaluru - Frankfurt was about nine hours nonstop, Frankfurt - Dallas was a strenous eleven hours nonstop over the Atlantic ocean and the North sea. We reached Dallas Fort Worth by 1545 hours (Central Time). This should approximately 0315 hours on 15th February 2007 in India.

With temperatures below zero empowered by jerkins and protected by sweaters, after crossing the Immigration and Customs, we took a cab to checkin to the hotel, to get started with the business life at Dallas, till about the second week of May. There is more that I observed and am.

I would keep posted as time progresses. Stay Tuned!