There are days when you wake up hardly realizing that they would be ones that would take you on epic journeys. I had one of those over the weekend....
I was scheduled to come back to my home city (Karachi) from a smaller city in another province (Multan). I checked out of the hotel at 8am and got to the airport only to find that the airport is closed on account of some official VIP visit to the city. Having no flights out till 2 days later, my only option was to drive all the way to Lahore to catch an evening flight. The drive itself was 5 hours and took me all over Punjab's countryside which was an interesting experience for sure. Getting to Lahore, I find that there is no way into the city due to the power riots and the subsequent blocking of all entry and exit routes of the city. So I had to ditch the rented car and get onto a rickshaw that weaved its way around the back roads of Lahore to get me to the airport. Slightly over a kilometer away from the airport (in visual range) the rickshaw breaks down and so I have to decide whether to wait on the highway for someone to help me or miss the flight since all I had left was 1.5hours to takeoff and I didn't even have a printout of the ticket itself. So I chose a third option and ran across a field towards the airport praying that the airport security guys didn't shoot me thinking I was up to something. They didn't :) At check in I am told that the Lahore - Karachi flight is now a Lahore - Islamabad - Karachi flight...a full 2 hours more than the scheduled flying time due to shortage of aircraft that day. I was scheduled to originally reach Karachi at 10am and I reached at 10pm...having travelled across an entire province by road and air......a day I will not forget soon :)
I was scheduled to come back to my home city (Karachi) from a smaller city in another province (Multan). I checked out of the hotel at 8am and got to the airport only to find that the airport is closed on account of some official VIP visit to the city. Having no flights out till 2 days later, my only option was to drive all the way to Lahore to catch an evening flight. The drive itself was 5 hours and took me all over Punjab's countryside which was an interesting experience for sure. Getting to Lahore, I find that there is no way into the city due to the power riots and the subsequent blocking of all entry and exit routes of the city. So I had to ditch the rented car and get onto a rickshaw that weaved its way around the back roads of Lahore to get me to the airport. Slightly over a kilometer away from the airport (in visual range) the rickshaw breaks down and so I have to decide whether to wait on the highway for someone to help me or miss the flight since all I had left was 1.5hours to takeoff and I didn't even have a printout of the ticket itself. So I chose a third option and ran across a field towards the airport praying that the airport security guys didn't shoot me thinking I was up to something. They didn't :) At check in I am told that the Lahore - Karachi flight is now a Lahore - Islamabad - Karachi flight...a full 2 hours more than the scheduled flying time due to shortage of aircraft that day. I was scheduled to originally reach Karachi at 10am and I reached at 10pm...having travelled across an entire province by road and air......a day I will not forget soon :)
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