Tuesday morning 3 am  Milano Time, I  finally get out of bed after waking up every hour on the hour since I went to bed  as I was mortally scared of missing my flight. It seems strange but booking a flight from your destination seems so much easier than what it actually taking the flight.

“Do you want to book the 8.50 flight, madam?” asked Ibrahim
“That’s ok with me,” said I knowing that I wasn’t going to be staying near the airport.
“You’ll have to report 3 hours before take off,” he warned me.
“That’s ok,I’ll manage, ” said I bravely not knowing that it was easier said than done.

Now no one really stays near International airports except the people of  Mumbai so taking a bus, car or tram to reach an airport is par for the course. So I was all prepared to make the hour long journey to get to  Malpensa , but I wasn’t prepared for the fact that it wouldn’t be easy.

Milan by night is quite raucous and noisy with boisterous late night revellers laughing on the streets,  with trams trundling through and cars tearing down the entire night,  it would seem really easy  to hail a passing cab or jump into a bus or even get into a tram. But like most guesses in my life, this one turned out to be wrong.

The first tram was scheduled to start at 4.30 but when we went down to the stop, a sign merrily announced that the service was suspended for that day. So we walked further down the street only to find the first bus drive away. So not wanting to take any further chances or walking down half way to the airport, I insisted I get into a cab and make my way……

On my return home I found that we had to get to the terminal by bus, crawl through a serpentine queue to the Immigration where we were met with a mysterious sign that said “Domestic Travellers” which confused everyone till we realised that it meant passengers travelling within India on International flights………

As usual the sign posting is terrible and you have to guess which way to go out…This time I guessed right and made my way to the exit. Just as I was about to breeze through a Custom’s Officer casually asked me

“No luggage, madam?”

‘NO LUGGAGE?” he asked even more shocked when I pointed to my back pack.

Thankfully he accepted my explanation that I was away for a week and let me get out without any fuss.

Namaskar Mumbai!