So it took two tuk-tuks to take-take us to the airport. Well, not exactly, but we did have to summon two of them. The first one never showed, so we sent for a second, and it was fairly prompt, picking us up at our Airbnb in Hyderabad and taking us to the airport.

When we got there, we were all rather confused and clueless about where we should be dropped off for our airline, IndiGo. So we just settled on a spot, and, as it turned out that was exactly where we needed to be.

Hyderabad

This was to be our first domestic flight on this tour, and it was a relief to be able to skip the whole customs and immigration obstacle course. But the downside was that we did have to check our large backpacks. Because we were flying a budget airline, the overhead bins didn’t accommodate anything much larger than a deck of cards. So we checked the bags, then settled in near the check-in gate to wait a couple of hours before boarding; as usual, we’d use this time to have lunch and take advantage of the airport’s wi-fi.

After we’d waited for a while, a young man who was an employee of the airline came up to us carrying some papers and asked, “excuse me, are you Mr. and Mrs. Goza”?

Well, yes, we informed him, rather taken aback, that was indeed us.

“Good”, he said, “I’ve been trying to find you for about an hour. There’s a problem with your checked baggage.”

He then offered to lead one of us down to where the bags were being scrutinized so we could take care of (i.e., remove) a taboo item. Namely, a long-barreled lighter that we’d bought to ignite the little gas cooking stoves that are standard kitchen equipment in this part of the world.

So he conducted Dennis into an off-limits elevator for a backstage tour down to the forbidden basement, where after going through yet another security check and being issued a guest badge, Dennis was able to enter the sacred screening room. Although the lighter showed up quite readily on the monitor, he had a hard time locating it in the bag because Kimberly had packed it away, and she has a tendency to Kimberlize things. It pretty much required totally unpacking the bag (the security personnel were fascinated by our LifeStraws, which are designed to filter out dirty water and make it safe to drink when you’re out in the wild) until finally the lighter turned up tucked away in an obscure little pocket, and wrapped in a little plastic bag. So the security people inherited it, the bag got repacked, and we were good to go. And we’re very appreciative of the young man who went above and beyond the call of duty in tracking us down. We don’t even want to think about what could have happened if he hadn’t.

Lucknow

Landing in Lucknow, we made our way out of the airport and through the usual gauntlet of taxi and tuk-tuk drivers vying for your services to the train station across the street. Then we took about a half-hour ride to the neighborhood where we’d be staying, and had only a couple of blocks to walk to our Airbnb. We were quite grateful that it was no farther than that, because even though it was around 9:00 p.m., the heat was still murderous. It was like summer in India or something.

When we got in the vicinity of our Airbnb, our host, with whom we’d been in contact, met us on the street. We knew it was him, because he called our names when he saw us. Good thing he did come to escort us, because finding his front door required going down an alley that was rather confusing.

Once inside, we settled into a comfortable room which — joy of joys — included an air conditioner.

07/08-09 AirBnB

Our host was a very congenial fellow who loved to make corny jokes, and spoke very good English, apparently as a native tongue. When we expressed surprise over this after our experience with the polyglots of India, he said, “well, the British occupied us for a long time.” To which we replied, “yes, us too.” His daughter, a college student who apparently handles a lot of the Airbnb online transactions, was also very likeable and hospitable. They even served us some of that excellent Indian chai that we’ve been encountering as a standard ritual of hospitality.

The day after our arrival, which was the only full day we had in Lucknow, we went exploring the town. There weren’t a great many points of interest — it seems to be a city dominated by poverty, and such sights as outdoor urinals and showers, and produce vendors sleeping on their carts. There were also more homeless people than we’ve seen anywhere else in the country.

One thing we did was go back to the train station to do some recon for our departure the following day. The station is a very handsome old building, almost palatial in design. Quite a contrast to the scene of passengers and would-be passengers camped out on its floors and on the ground in front by the hundreds.

Something else that caught our eye was monkeys. There were several of them, climbing on the cables and supports overhead, and we sort of wished that we’d be in town longer so we could indulge in some simian-watching. Little did we realize that in the month to come, we’d be seeing more monkeys than we ever knew existed.

07/08-09/2022