Hyderabad – Bombay – Zurich – Amsterdam – Putten

I thought long and hard for a name for my chronicles. Given that fact the the dutch have the only sex museaum in the world Dirty Dutch Diary (DDD) seemed perfect. Now let me get to the meat of the matter, so to speak.

My company seems to have something against me as I somehow always get stuck in the most haphazardly planned projects – and this was no different.

Apart from the fact that I was informed on Monday and told that I would have to go on Thursday, nothing really had the hallmark of the Cordys planning behind it. Maybe it is just me. Anyways, my accounts team did not know that I was going, so they had not arranged the forex that I was to carry. The next plan was that the forex guy would bring it to the airport. The guy timed it so well that I got the cash with just 5 min to go into security check.

At Bombay the next act played itself out. Usually the person flies 3-4 days after the stamping of the visa. In our case, we were flying on the very next day. So we could not take the risk of asking the agent to send the visa to Hyderabad. That meant we had the added hassleof meeting up with the agent in Mumbai. This fortunately went without a hitch.We were then transported to the international airport by a Jet Aiways bus which cut across the inside of the air field. A thoroughly exciting trip.

At the international airport I was informed that my flight from Bombay to Zurich was a non-smoking one. So you can all imagine what I went through. I had had my last smoke at 7:30 in Hyd. Then these guys were telling me that my next smoke would be a further 12 hours away. I could die. Fortunately we were still in India and I could catch a couple of smokes in the loo. The Bom-Zurich flight was completely uneventful but for the fact that I had three beers en route.

At Zurich I realised that my next flight too was non-smoking and so was most of Zurich Airport. However, my tenacity saw me through and I found the smoking zone. 🙂 So a couple of smokes and I rushed into the smallest plane of my journey. But surprisingly, it was in this the smallest plane of my journey that we found the most comfortable and most spacious seats. And just to add spice to the last one and half hour hop of the journey we had a couple in front of us who smooched their way from Zurich to Amsterdam. Landing at Amsterdam everything went without a hitch until we cameout. A few minutes and laps of the place and we realised that there was no one to receive us.

We had two options, one to call Cordys andmake arrangements, two to make our own way.

We chose the latter. We picked up train tickets to Putten. This meant a fast train to Amsteroos and then a slow train from there to Putten. An hour and thirty minutes later we were at Putten. A wonderfully tiny village. So tiny that there wasn’t a single cab at the station. When we enquired we were told that the Vanenburg castle was just a 15 minute walk from the station. So we hiked it here.

This was the journey so far. Of course, the worst is that there is no room at the caslte and so we will be put up in a hotel a little ways away. Too bad.

The weekend plans are Saturday – Rotterdam and Sunday – Amsterdam.

Watch this space for updates.