Our GoAir saga is not over yet. We are now at gate A09, this is changed quietly from A08 and the gates aren’t next to each other at Mumbai’s domestic airport terminal 1 A. Krishnan, my ever vigilant sweetheart, kept checking the announcement display board and saw that the gate had been changed. So we climbed the stairs went down another set of stairs and I remembered this was where I had taken the last Air India flight from a few months back … Hoping atleast the flight takes off in time. All the GoAir and Air India counters reek of disengagement and general apathy. Will need to wait and see if death comes quickly or is prolonged for these two airlines. No one cares, customers ofcourse “be damned”. It’s your fault that you booked a ticket !!
Btw, as we walked to gate A09, all seats were occupied by Air India passengers. I told Krishnan lets walk around and check again if this is the gate. Just then we heard the Jamnagar Air India flight had a gate change from A09 to A14. An elderly couple were sitting in the first row , and hadn’t heard the announcement, so I went and alerted them. A whole bunch of people had to run up a set of stairs and go down another to get to A14. It’s sad that airlines are unable to even manage gates properly :(:(.
The early morning flight that we took from Goa was Spicejet. They said we could get seats in the first 5 rows if we paid 750 bucks per seat … With an already expensive set of canceled-rebooked tickets we said no. The smart lady at the counter immediately gave a 50% discount and we got seats in the 4th row, with loads of leg space ! Don’t know how cramped the seats were beyond row 5. So next time ask for a discount and maybe you get lucky. But 750/- per seat is a lot of money.
I can’t only complain, because the day started with a junk trail in Mumbai – went to Vile Parle East station as suggested by Sajid and Rajendra. Didn’t find a vadapav stall in front of the station but had awesome tea. Then we just walked back to the main Nehru Road. Found the “Samrat” vadapav store which was supposed to open at 8 am but the shutters were down till 8.30. We immediately spotted “Shiv vadapav” across the street and ate our hearts fill. Nothing to beat freshly made vadapav. There is something about the Mumbai and Pune pav that isn’t recreated anywhere else in the country. Probably they knead the flour with their legs like dad would tease me :):):).
We have boarded the GoAir flight to Delhi …. Now fingers crossed after typing out this blog that we take off on time. An authentic Mumbai vadapav can actually make me feel good enough that I can deal with the gate changes with a smile !