Welcome Aboard Flight AI 048 For Keralaness!

16th April 2014

Ok, so by now you all must be knowing by my posts on Kerala why I was hopping around in the Munnar Tea plantations and what was I doing on that gorgeous bus clicking selfies 😀 But #OneMore time for those who were sleepy & ignorant 😀 – I was the top Indian winner of Kerala Blog Express 2, an international contest by Kerala Tourism, with maximum votes and was invited for a road trip across Kerala along with 29 other super bloggers from across the globe. (Phew, #OneMore time I have to say this and I think Kerala Tourism should start to pay me :P)

With half of my cupboard in the suitcase, I was all over the place in my attempt to reach the airport on time for my flight to Kerala. My mom always tells me that I leave important things for last minute and it wasn’t a different case at all this time around too. I forgot to book the cab well in advance and Meru Cabs didn’t prove reliable in urgency either. I haphazardly downloaded Ola Cabs and voila…within 2 minutes the cab was booked. However, since I was rushing and using the app for the first time, I messed up by booking two cabs at a time. Both cabs arrived at the same time at my residence and somehow I explained to one of them why I could not have afforded an argument and boarded the other. You know, how easily we swoon over the new-age technologies these days, and for me that day Ola stood out practically in an SOS situation.

I finally arrived at the airport and met my friend-in-need-a-friend-indeed friend, Zia. His easiness and slapstick conversations are a delight when I’m rushing against time to catch my flight (like always :D) and he would calm me down with his wit.

So there I was ready to board Air India flight 048 from Delhi to Trivandrum via Kochi, a flight I wanted to board for a long time. Seldom had I known I will soon, but the #KeralaBlogExpress way! J

Few of us, the winners, were boarding the same flight from Delhi and I happened to catch them at the boarding gate speaking Spanish – my first moments with the foreign language (and a popular one) I knew I’d hear for the next 15 days J It didn’t matter knowing I won’t understand it, that moment was just enough to confirm the beginning of an international event I had made it to, a diverse journey and a superb one!

We were the last ones to arrive at the Cochin International Airport around 10.30 pm and sadly, there were no official photographers for us! So as always, I made a point to get clicking.

The welcome was celeb-like, same as you see in MTV Roadies (a TV reality show in India) and I could easily call it a better online version of it where we were to be pampered right from the word go and not bullied down to perform a task :D. While, The KBE Crew waited for us at the airport exit with posters that had our names written on them, flowers and cars to drive us to our hotel Uday Samudra, Kovalam, we waited to be walked out on in God’s own country and know why it is called one.

And though I only wanted to crash in my cozy bed as I reached my first of the tens of super luxurious hotels in the days to come, I still unpacked a bit and recorded a video ! (wow you lazy thing, you did it :P)

I finally let all the excitement sink in that night… went to bed thanking my stars, my God and all of you who voted for me in such huge numbers and made it possible! J

Ladies and gentlemen, my journey of a lifetime had begun!