From Tourist to Traveller: Day 0

A few weeks back I went to visit Singapore, I went alone and upon coming back I faced like a million questions but most of them were the same why did you go alone? To be honest, I am not sure if I know the answer. I have a few theories of my own, my mind wanders a lot for the answer. A part of me answers by saying I wanted some alone time. Another part reminds me of the feeling I felt while watching Into the Wild, to be honest, that thought unsettles me.

My journey was supposed to begin via train from Dehradun to Lucknow and then the flight to Singapore but fate had something else in store for me, 2 hours before the departure time the train got delayed by 11 hours. I ended up booking a flight from Gurgaon to Lucknow, then I only had to reach Gurgaon. I reached the place around 4 a.m, the bus dropped me in middle of the highway I think, it was dark I couldn’t see a thing.

A quick tip, whenever you are flying domestic from Gurgaon travel with Jet Airways and Air India you will thank me later. I had heard a lot about terminal 3 from my friends and family and it was everything they said and more. Then I reached Lucknow and probably it’s airport is the worst a state capital can have by any standards. I found out that International Terminal is somewhere else. In my head, I was thinking maybe it will be better but no it was worse.

It was my first time flying International so I didn’t know about a few things, like immigration forms and you have to get your passport stamped(not talking about visa) and all those things. As I was standing in line for those I started getting excited and once it got stamped I was like finally, it’s happening.

The flight got delayed by an hour and I was okay with it, because of fog trains and flights were getting delayed left and right. After 1-2 hours of waiting finally, I was sitting in the plane, taxing about to be started. I called my parents to tell them sayonara. It was around 11 p.m IST when the plane took off and the day got over with me being 1000s’ of feet in the sky.