Travelling to distant and new places and meeting people has been one of my most fascinating hobbies. Whenever, I get time to go out of my place of posting to attend any training session or seminar or a meeting, I attended the same with full of enthusiasm. One of the recent travel which I am still undergoing, means I am writing this travelogue while performing an air travel from Delhi to Chandigarh. The time of the flight is 5 am and I am expected to land at Chandigarh at 6 am , so I thought to write the story of the events which I had to undergo and share with you people .
Different experiences over the different phases of life are inevitable. But some instances in life teach lessons too. One
such instance that I am going through presently is like I had to attend a Conference organised by National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA) to be held at Gangtok (Sikkim) on 2nd of December 2022. I received itinerary and travel tickets from NIUA . Since the timings of all the originating and connecting flights do not seem appropriate to me so I requested the NIUA authorities to change it with appropriate flight options. but may be it was not possible. I started for Chandigarh on 30th Nov 
and reached there at night. Booked a hotel near Chandigarh Airport as my flight was at 6.30 am next day. I booked and stayed in hotel ” Suites and Country Inn- by Radisson ” since they had instructed me the same. The problem here I faced was that these people do not provide stay for drivers. So had to book another room in adjoining hotel by paying 1200/-. Next day since I had to push off at 4am for airport as I was told that now for domestic flights passenger has to reach 2 hours in advance. I got up at 3 am and after necessary freshening up morning activities I checked out at 4 am, reached Airport Chandigarh at 4.30 am and checked in after having boarding pass and it was Indigo flight . Reached Delhi at 7.30 am at Terminal 3 of IGI Airport. My next connecting flight to BAGDOGRA was at 2.15 PM so I had keep stranded for about 7 hours and had to take a shuttle bus service from T3 to T1. Tried to engage myself in book reading and other activities like interaction with
unknown passengers etc but still 7 hours is too long a time and had got up since 3am. Anyways, scheduled time finally came and boarding for my flight to was announced. Bagdogra (West Bengal) Airport which seems to a tiny airport like we have Shimla and Dharamshala Airports and finally my flight reached at 4 pm. Collected my in-board baggage and came out of the airport called up the tour operator whose mobile number was given to me by the organising organisation. 
After some time a boy flashing placard displaying my name reached on the exit gate and recieved my luggage trolly and started walking towards nearby parking while doing small chit chat . He made me to sit in a designated Innova Crysta and we waited for Gauri Shrivastava a NIUA officer. She reached soon-after and we started our onward journey to Gangtok with a lot of enthusiasm and a lot more anxiousness as I was visiting a state which I had never visited before. I asked the driver about the duration of the journey upto Gangtok , he after creating a serious environment, told that it’s normally 6 -7 hours sometimes but depends on traffic intensity , as according to him the road leading to Gangtok is completely uphill and lot of trucks start with different supplies. His these words again gave me a shock and I thought that it would have been better if I would have not come . I already had checked the distance of Gangtok from Bagdogra which
showed that it’s 122 kms, which was somewhat similar to that of, the distance of Chandigarh from Mandi. As again to normalise myself from the shock that I had just recieved, I wanted myself to get into gossips with driver by enquiring different associated things so I did the same to replace negative idea from my mind. We had started at 4.30 pm from Bagdogra, reached exactly at 9.30 pm. Got a relief to see that a good hotel was booked for us and the same hotel was also the venue for the event.
I was badly exhausted so immediately after freshening up took dinner and got to bed for sleep. ohhh I forgot to mention here the hotel name. It was RAMADA by Wyndham, a good 5 star hotel with swimming pool and Golden Casino. Next morning, the conference was held and the content related to the same is not required to be produced here being a technical matter. The conference was inaugurated by Secretary Urban Development Department, Government of Sikkim . It was great time discussing and learning many things related to sanitation status in 12 Hill States.
We had wonderful Gala dinner and many had heavy intake of liquor too. I requested stay for the next day also as I thought coming to such beautiful distant place is lifetime opportunity and can not be visited again and again.
Sikkim is a clean and Zero Carbon state in India and Gangtok is a beautiful place with many scenic places around..
Next day on the morning of 3rd November I after taking breakfast went to MG road, Gangtok Municipal Corporation and then left for a small sight seeing trip around Gangtok. Finally came to hotel and rested after dinner. Next morning I recieved a packed dinner and started for BAGDOGRA Airport by Innova Crysta which was provided by NIUA. Reached Bagdogra at 10.30am. After waiting for 3 hours, as I had come in advance keeping in view the heavy traffic, boarded Vistara flight at 2.35pm and was scheduled to reach Delhi at 4.15 but it got late and landed at Delhi at 4.56 PM. My connecting flight for Chandigarh was at 5.10 PM. But after running a lot the flight was missed. I thought it’s only me who was crying over the staff after landing at Delhi but then suddenly I found that there were 8 others around me who had missed Chandigarh Vistara flight. So we were 9 passengers and we were told 
that the airline is arranging their tickets within 15 minutes for Chandigarh but after a small interval the vistara
official came and told that there is no flight and now he will help for Indigo flight at 9 PM . After an hour he told that Indigo has refused to take their passengers and ticket can’t be arranged for flight scheduled for 9 PM for Chandigarh. Then he said the Vistara will send us next day morning at 5 am. We told him to bring tickets only after that he should talk to us. Finally we got tickets for next day
I now needed hotel to halt for 3 4 hours and one of my friends arranged it in nearby area called Mahipalpur. I rushed to the hotel by prepaid taxi and reached there within 15 minutes from IGI Airport and the name of Hotel is FOXOSO. On reaching and after checking in, I had my dinner and then at 9.30 I went to bed after putting alarm for 1.30 am and also asked for taxi at 2.30 am . I slept for 3 to 4 hours and got up at 1.30 am . After little excercise and bath I rushed to Airport where I reached at 2.45 am. Recieved boarding pass after going through a very long queue and finally got in . Waited for few minutes and boarding started at 4.15 am. Boarding started at schedule time and reached Chandigarh at 5.45am and it was just 35 minutes flight.
Now I am in my car which had come yesterday and I had asked him to wait.
So what I could learn from this incident is that there should appropriate time between the two flights, not too long and not too short.
Now feeling relaxed . Thank you God