Catching a Flight in Goa(Angelika Hansen) Consider this:
March 24, you're getting up around 9 am, packing, being anxious – every time you leave a place to go somewhere else - taking care of last things, smiling good-byes etc., wiping a tear or 2 at leaving this unbearable/wonderful country. Request taxi for 7.30 pm for the one-hour drive from the village to the airport.
Catch Air India flight to Mumbai at 10 at night; pray that it will leave on time since you'll have to catch another flight in Mumbai at 5 am, check-in at two.

So, here you are, on time at 8.30 pm at Dabulim Airport, still in Goa.
No check-in counter opened yet, even though your plan supposedly leaves in 90!! minutes.
What to do?
Probably tired – late hour, excitement of changing places/cultures/climate again, with rather mixed feelings – you had a busy excited emotional day and may want to rest and wait, preferred Indian pastime. But where? Too few chairs, the floor NOT clean enough to lay down, unless you are truly desperate for a nap.
So you watch other tired/worried/sceptic/excited/happy travelers and honeymooners in countless glittering bangles that can’t be taken off for one whole year, never mind what you’re doing, on their way back from „Goa paradise“ to more crowded and polluted places!! – noisy and arrogant young middle class Indians in Jeans, T-Shirts, who „made it“, but seem to have lost the sweetness and graciousness most Indians naturally have, gladly - all of that is still mostly a pleasure to see – humanity in its many forms and colors, and not to forget friendly looks and sweet smiles.
The sight and short time until departure notwithstanding you might feel like nodding off a little; it smells musty and is humid and windy from ferociously whirring overhead fans. Warm enough to take off most of your clothes, but at the same time too cool so you don’t – and anyway, in India you better never do! Take most of your clothes off, that is. Nevertheless, you might peacefully nod off a little – or you grab a book (Tagore in this case) just purchased in the tiny, dusty overstuffed bookshop with the bespectacled bookworm cum sales person for the pleasantly low amount of 90 Rupees (about 1,50 Euros) – the Indians like to read, should they be so capable. Or is it the Indian government trying to MAKE them read and luring them with inexpensive books? Either way, you start reading. Which makes you drowsy again.
But what does my roving eye see in search for something enlivening? A Samosa stall that also sells tiny plastic cups with overly sweetened Nescafé for almost as much as you paid for the Tagore, but it’s something to do, and besides you haven’t had dinner yet. How does it taste? Well, acceptable, never mind the tiny McDonald-like ketchup things (what happened to the tasty Indian mint-sauce as ketchup-ersatz??), and apart from the fact that those Samosas are deep-fried and dripping with oil whose origin you will never know...Though the oils here all carry the comforting information: „safe for human consumption“. Well, good to know...

So, in the meantime it’s almost 9 pm and you hope the check-in-counter is open. In order to get there, not a long but a dusty walk on Goa airport under construction, you will pass several stern uniformed security personnel, some of them truly impressive looking, a machine gun slung over their shoulder – but impressive or not, you wonder why those guys have to look at your passport even though they seem to do only just that: no checking of any kind going on, though they probably can read... But India does have many people who need to make a living, so an airport, any airport, seems a perfect place to employ many oft them...
Finaly before you arrive at the check-in you arrive at the machine that checks all your luggage (there will be more such checks later on). Someone in a fiery red uniform strings a very tight plastic rope around it and squashes everything inside. If you don’t find scissors once you have reached your destination to cut those ropes – well, you might have a problem!
Hopefully nothing in your bag meets the suspicious eyes of the controller. You heave your belongings on the rusty, creaking cart again and set off for the nearest check-in-counter – and lo and behold, there seemingly out of nowhere another uniformed machine gun carrier wants to look at your passport. Alright then.

Finally, the counter! In plain sight, with no check-in person anywhere to be seen!
You check the time and the many people who obviously want to take the same flight. It’s 9.40 now, your flight leaves in an hour (at least that’s the plan!), the digital signs read „check-in closes 45 minutes before take-off“ – and you wonder how they will pull that one off in such an impossibly short time.
Oh well, at least you are where you need to be at this time and remember (not that you ever forgot!) you are in India where in the end everything always works out – at least most of the time. Well actually you are not QUITE THERE YET, since you have first to reach Mumbai before you catch your international flight.


A few minutes later the counter opens, not a minute too late, and some ground staff lazily begin with check-in procedures. And to your chagrin you realize not fort the first time: The Indians might have learned a thing or two from the British – standing in queue and awaiting their turn is definitely NOT one of those things!! You feel torn between the „righteous“ indignation and the compelling need to teach that queue-jumping individual what the British obviously were not able to: Please wait until it’s your turn. You might feel tempted to omit „please“ and instead add some exclamation marks !! for emphasis. But you say nothing since you know from many an experience that only the force of your elbows will hold the little devil back, but as a good girl you will not regress to such measures – hey, don’t call me cowardly! Ok, maybe a little – then again, we all will get on that plane eventually. And his/her sweet smile once they have succeeded in upstaging you in the queue makes it all good again – different people, different ways. And considering how many people live in this country it’s understandable that everyone tries to find a place, preferably one in the front row.

10.20 pm you finally arrive at the gate. 10 short minutes to go before your flight takes off – and then a voice informing the passengers that there is a delay. Not to worry, just a few minutes waiting for the flight from Delhi to arrive, and boarding will start.
A few minutes?!? In India that can mean anything from, yes – a few minutes, to hours.

We wait, I with the nagging fear that I might not make it in time to my flight in Mumbai. Well, omitting more details let me just say: I/we did make it in time to Mumbai, just so – And after many another checking procedures five and a half hours later we land in Istanbul, early morning there, the tiredness washed away with strong tea and a piece of sweet Bhaklava; and 3 hours later on to Berlin, another 3 and a half hours flight.
Finally falling into a fitful sleep on your narrow seat. Which is good, since you land in Berlin at 11.45 in the morning, with a whole day to go before sleepy time is here again.

Happy to be „back“? Not screamingly, but it will be good to see friends and maybe some family again – and in any case it is a „new“ place; you have great plans for further journeys and know you will take them. Soon. You might not even have to unpack your luggage completely until you are happily off again...


... At least I would not be surprised if that would be the way it works.

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