Escape From Bombay

(Snake Plisskin) On Friday evening seven of us piled into two taxis and tried to catch our flights out of Bombay's International Airport. Although many had told us to leave plenty of time in advance of our flights, none of us anticipated the magnitude of the obstacles before us.

Our adventure started when trying to fit seven people and their bags into two mini taxis. How many planners can you fit in a Bombay taxi? Four, with baggage. We were squeezed in like circus clowns. One of the taxis almost drove off with the trunk unlatched - that final bag ended up riding in someone's lap. In the other taxi, the three crammed in the back seat were almost riding on each other's lap. Every 15 minutes on the ride we would choreograph a shifting of positions, so uncomfortable were we.

The trip out started as expected. We were leaving the equivalent of Manhattan on a Friday evening, so the streets were full, horns were honking, and music was blaring. Our 430 air conditioner was struggling to keep us cool. The willingness to drive within lanes, a uniquely Bombay trait, started to break down. Still, we had been warned about this, and the experience seemed within reason. We figured it would clear out once we got out of downtown.
We cleared downtown after about 25 minutes of stoplighted boulevards, and once we passed a construction zone and entered a suburban thoroughfare, we thought we were on our way. Indeed, for about 10 minutes driving along the east shoreline of Mahim Bay, we moved for several minutes at about 35 km/h. But once we got to the area around the Dharavi squatter settlement, traffic slowed down again, and we realized that things had only looked good on that stretch of road because so many other travelers (including our second taxi) had paid the toll to use the SeaLink bridge on the west side of Mahim Bay. Now the two paths merged again, and traffic clogged up again. Creeping past Dharavi, we were tempted to strike up conversations with our neighbors, only 12 inches away.

The next stretch of road was an expressway that we had driven once before at midday earlier in the week, and we were thrilled to recognize landmarks that meant for us progress on the route. But progress was still slow, and instead of stoplights slowing traffic, here we had stalled vehicles causing lanes to merge. To save gas, many drivers turn their engines off when stopped. At stoplights we could understand it, but in the middle of an expressway traffic jam, we thought the risks of not being able to start the engine again were too high. It was at this point that we truly began to appreciate the genius of our driver. While we could hardly get him to turn the radio down, and while trying to explain to him that he should keep the engine running seemed a hopeless task, we appreciated the skill with which he anticipated stalled cars and switched lanes before others noticed, the way he would honk any time someone would encroach in our space, he would cut off other cars that were trying to scoot past us, and could squeeze through gaps like a cockroach. His taxi (and amazingly many others) had no dents. Despite driving for 30 minutes within handshake distance of our fellow travelers, there were no fender benders.

We started to see signs for the airport, thankfully in the direction we were headed. Eventually we left the expressway and got to the surface streets that would take us to the terminal. The streets were still jammed, and we could hardly believe that this many people were going to the airport. We speculated that this was the result of not having light rail to go to the airport, but when we finally got to the terminal roads, the traffic disappeared. As we alighted curbside, there was plenty of parking and no honking cars. I gave the taxi driver a 20% tip, and our only concern at this point was whether one of the stalled taxis we had passed on the way in was the other taxi of our group. Our bags were all split up between the two taxis, so nobody would have been able to travel without both taxis arriving at the airport. However, we quickly found our other group, and we compared notes about the ride in. They had saved 10 minutes by taking the SeaLink, but their driver wasn't as 'skilled' as ours, so they only arrived five minutes ahead of us.

We had covered 18 miles in two hours.

The next challenge was to get onto the plane. We had to show our (e)tickets before we could enter the airport, and we first had to stand in a line to xray screen our checkin luggage before we even approached the checkin counter. They treated Lee like a first class passenger and let him cut in line, and Hing followed and got through, but the rest of us got kicked back to the end of the economy passenger line. Once the checkin bag was screened, it was wrapped with security tape and we stood in line to check in. Check in went normal, so we graduated to the third line, which was to get to the gates. Here they xray screened our carry on luggage, and we got the most thorough patting down of the whole trip (high end hotels here also have xray screening and pat downs with the metal detector wands). They found my money belt that nobody else had found, and the ladies' line (yes, separate lines for Ladies and Gents) was so long that one thought it must be for the restroom. We all did eventually make it through to the gate, and we spent our last rupees on snacks.

After 30 minutes in the lobby at the gate, they began boarding, and we stood in the last lines of our trip. We showed boarding passes at the gate, then in the passage to the plane our carryon luggage was subjected to a hand-search. 10 meters later we had to show our boarding pass stub to the stewards before getting on the plane. I tried to get board without showing it, saying that I knew where my seat was, but they insisted, for 'security' reasons. We finally did make it on the plane and settled comfortably (compared to the taxi, economy class was comfortable) into our seats, dreaming of the drinkable tap water and queueless airport of Singapore.