Sometimes the easiest things can take you a while in a different country. This applies especially for India. And especially for the Andaman islands. Again we learned the hard way.
The event that led to this story happened quite a while ago when the Sri Lankan airlines forced us to book an onwards flight from India before boarding our plane. It was a very stressful experience at the Colombo airport: Without much time or WiFi we had to book an exit flight from India and make an on the spot guess as to when our time in India should end. We completed our booking in the last minutes and could board the plane. When we arrived in India, the immigration authorities did not even ask for the exit flights from India (that is another story). What matters is that we had to be back in Delhi on a certain date to catch the onwards flight to Kathmandu. In order to keep the rest of the journey flexibel, we booked our domestic Indian flights step by step.
11 days before our flight to Kathmandu we were still on Little Andaman and had no flight to Delhi. The task was simple, get a one way ticket to New Delhi from the Andaman islands and then catch our Kathmandu flight. Organizing this flight turned into a full day activity (again). In this post we share what led to the frustration.
After having bad luck with the internet signal, the local sim card and in internet cafes, we decided to go to a local travel agent to book the flight to Delhi. We searched the main town of Hut Bay, asked locals and asked the police who finally directed us to a garage shop with one desk, one computer and a printer, 4 plastic chairs and a friendly lady. There was literally nothing more in this room. But the lady confirmed that she would assist us with the ticket inquiry. We could pay cash or with card. But she was about to close the shop. So we would have to come back the next day. And off she was.
Back on the main (and only) street we met our neighbors, watched a cow run through a cement wall by accident and had a brief chat when the lady suddenly returned and reopened the shop for us. Great! Her internet connection was slow but working and we managed to get the rates for the flights. Britt had a bad feeling about paying with card and we decided to fetch cash at the ATM. We rushed to the only ATM in town. Empty, of course. Back at the travel agency, we explained that we would have to pay with card. “No, we do not accept credit cards, only cash”. – “But,…you said before… fine! can we use your internet signal and book the flights ourselves? We could pay your regular commission in cash!” But also this offer was refused. She advised us to come back the next day with cash.
So the next morning we jumped on the scooter and drove back into town. 30 minutes one way. The ATM was still not working. In the bank building we had no chance to withdraw cash either because our debit cards were foreign. After bothering the branch manager regularly for one hour, three employees managed to get the ATM to work. Finally we could withdraw cash for the flight tickets.
The travel agency was open and we could pick up the flight ticket project where we left off. She opened again a flight comparison site (similar to Sky Scanner) and checked the rates. Unfortunately overnight the fare had gone up significantly. Alternative dates also went up in price. We weren’t surprised because this sort of thing is usual. But since the price appeared just too high we asked her to check the fare on Google Flights. Via Google Flights we found a much better deal directly from the carrier. But again she refused to book it. Finally we agreed on a commission if she were to book it for us. But instead of booking the tickets, she started making phone calls and opening other tabs and browsers, it was still for our flight inquiry but absolute nonsense. Urging her to finish the booking, after 30 minutes of waiting, the flight fare we found earlier was not available any longer. Frustrated we had to compromise on a different date when the fare would be a little lower (still high). And when we decided on a different flight the lady suddenly requested a commission double as high as the one we agreed to. We do not know why, maybe we were lost in translation the first time (which we both do not think was the case) or she had just witnessed our frustration and thought, now they’ll pay anything, just to finish. But we did not, out of principle! And because the previous booking session led us nowhere. Instead we left and started searching for an internet shop in town so that we could book it ourselves. We found one around the corner. With a speed where pages could actually load, not fast but at least entirely, we started the booking process. And again, the fares went up! Probably just because there where so many requests for the same date from different computers (still us). At this point we really did not care any longer and just booked the ticket ourselves.
This project ended after seven hours in total (two hours riding to town and back, one hour at the ATM, three hours at the travel agency over two days and one hour in the internet cafe). But at least we had tickets that were too expensive, on a different date than our first choice and because we used the credit card online we were stuck with way too much cash than we could use during our remaining days in India.
Lesson learned, next time on the Andaman islands we would book the flights to mainland India in advance and even prior to arriving to the islands. Even if it means losing out on our flexibility.
These kinds of things unfortunately happen all the time in India and often small organizational tasks keep us really busy for quite some time. I could think of half a dozen similar “projects.” Another lessons learned would be to stay in places a little longer rather than trying to see as much as possible. This really increases the quality of your India time.