The general idea, if all went perfectly, was like this : Dec. 21st morning I leave for Vancouver from Toronto, I explore Vancouver on the 21st. Go to Whistler Blackcomb on the earliest bus from vancouver on 22nd,come back to vancouver by night and leave vancouver for chennai via hong kong on 23rd and reach chennai by early morning on christmas day and leave for Home via

Kochi International Airport by a morning flight.

The mistakes I made :

1) I booked flight from toronto when I could book it from waterloo itself

2) Did not leave enough time for transit.

3) over estimated the quality of some airline services.

4) Assumed that cities like Hong Kong and Delhi have ways to communicate with each other.

5) Forgot about dear old Murphy’s law…

A day before I leave, one of the worst snow storms in the last two decades hits Canada. So it’s near impossible travelling form waterloo to Toronto. But somehow I manage to get a cab and reach Toronto just in time for check in ( the fact that the flight itself was an hour or so late helped). So within a few hours I’m off to vancouver via Calgary. Once we get to Calgary, I’m worried that I’d missed the connection flight. But thankfully even that flight was a few hours delayed. So I hang around at the airport, just starting to realise the extent of the snowstorm. Apparently, it was snowing in Vancouver ( It usually doesn’t, and even if it does not so early in the winter and not so heavily) More than half the vancouverites in the flight were discussing how they don’t have winter tires and how their families and friends were stuck at home.

Anyway, I get on the flight and land in vancouver, just a few three or four hours of schedule. Somehow manage to get a cab (which was obviously driven by an Indian as is every other cab in vancouver) and start on my way to the hostel. The city was quite an interesting site. It was still snowing. In Waterloo, this would have been kind of normal, but Vancouver wasn’t prepareed, cars were crawling along because they had no winter tires, the roads were submerged in snow. The tram services wasn’t working because the cables had sort of frozen, subways weren’t working because the part of the track that was over land had snow all over. To top it all of, popular opinion was that vancouver had two snow ploughers to deal with all this snow. So much for being one of the best cities in the world and the host of the next winter olympics.

After finally finding the hostel and checking in and convincing the staff that i actually had come in from Toronto and then listening to them pity me for a while. I decided I’d rather explore the city… snow or no snow.

So I start walking to Granville island to get to the ferry station. Finding the ferry station turned out to be more difficult that i expected because the beach that was supposed to be there wasn’t really a beach anymore. Anyway, the rest of the day went quite well, walking in the snow in granville island and then downtown vancouver and then back to my room.

The plan for the next day was to take the earliest bus to whistler which involved cabbing it to the bus station. After calling a cab and waiting for one for over an hour and a half and deciding that there’s no way i’ll get to the bus station in time. I come across these two ppl with huge bags who , on asking, tell me they’re going to the bus depot. So I tag along, walk a few blocks to a monorail station which gets me to the bus stop(stopping every five minutes because their bags were just too huge). Where I discover to my luck that the bus is an hour late. So I don’t miss the bus. And luckily just in time for the skiing and ziptrekking sessions i’d signed up for.The rest of the day spent at whistler was quite awesome, and so does not find a place in this post.

At the end of the day, the greyhound back to vancouver from whistler simply does not turn up. And noone know’s where its disappeared to. They just know it left vancouver a few hours back and should have been in whistler quite some time back. After waiting a long while, a bus comes by which had just had its last trip. After much disccussion(read arguement/fight/…) it was decided that he’ll take us to vancouver. And I reach Vancouver around midnight.

On the fateful morning of 23rd I wake up to the sight of clear skies and start dreaming about getting back home in a day. And surprisingly, I get to the airport without much difficulty and checkin is on time, and so is boarding. But once we board the plane, it seems that the water refueling truck or something has some technical glitches, and by the time that is fixed and the plane is ready to take off we’re almost an hour or so off schedule. After an interesting plane ride, where I sit next to a guy who was kind of stoned. I end up in Hong Kong to find that my flight to Chennai’s already left and the next one’s only in the next afternoon. But the cathay pacific staff tell me that they could get me a morning flight to delhi and then arrange for a flight to chennai from there. After telling them that my final destination was actually Kochi, they tell me that that’s alright, they’ll arrange something for me, and take back the delhi chennai ticket issued to me and tell me that I’ll get a Delhi Cochin one when I get to Delhi.

The next day, I get to Delhi on time, but discover that they have no idea about the delhi kochi ticket and what more, they expected me to have the Delhi chennai ticket at least. And they had this random 20 soemthng fellow, relaying everything that i’m saying to his mananger and the other way. After much persuasion and shouting (during which the other people in the airport think i’m a nutcase) he finally gets the senior staff to come and meet me. Again a few hours of arguement and research later, they get me a flight to Chennai and then an onwards flight to Kochi. But they leave me with 15 minutes to get to the international terminal to check in. After running to get a cab and driving all the way to the international terminal which, for some reason, seems to be in a differnt district altogether from the domestic terminal I find out that I’m too late to check in and that I’ll have to wait for a later flight. And what more the people in the domestic temrinal don’t know the number of the cathay pacific staff to call them up.

A deep breath,a crappy but bloody expensive burger and a panadol later I’m just sitting on a trolley waiting for some cathay pacific staff to turn up at the domestic terminal (I’d finally managed to contact them after using a magazine that was there in one of the lounges in the airport), when I see another one of the kids at the cathay pacific office going around looking for someone. Before I proceed, in case you don’t know, my surname is Viswanathan Thattamparambil and as long and as deadly as it sounds people everywhere are determined to call me Mr. Thattamparambil or as is more likely start of with “tha…” and then go trailing off. So back to the story at hand, I have this guy come up to me and ask me, If I knew a Mr. Thaapad who was at the cathay pacific office with me. I say I don’t, and start asking about my problem, he then asks me to show him my passport/ticket. He takes one look at it and looks dumbfounded at me, and says, ” Why you saying you’re not MR Thapad, Yahaan likha hain ki aap Mr Thaapad ho ( It’s written here that you’re Mr. Thaapad)”.

Anyway, after getting the new ticket from him, he says i’ve to go to the other domestic terminal for an air india flight. It’s 5 minutes away and he advises me to take a rickshaw. The first rickshaw i get in tells me it’ll be 50Rs. I’m not exactly sure what I called him, but i vaguely remember it involving his sister and mother in law among other people. And I roll my troller all the way to the other terminal which takes me a good part of 15 minutes with three pieces of luggage. And i managed to check in without much incident. The rest of the trip went reasonably well, got to Chennai on time, ate dinner and slept at a 5 star airport hotel, and caught the next morning’s flight to Kochi.

Got home a day and half late; bloody tired but with renewed respect for Mr. Murphy.

Mumbai- Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport

Bangkok- Suvarnabhumi Airport

Brisbane- Brisbane International Airport (Kind of boring name that)

Sydney- Kingsford Smith International Airport

Auckland- Auckland Airport (!!)

Hong Kong- Chek Lap Kok Airport

Shanghai- Shanghai Pudong International Airport

Beijing- Beijing Capital International Airport

Tokyo- Narita International Airport

San Francisco- San Francisco International Airport

Los Angeles- Los Angeles International Airport

Las Vegas- McCarran International Airport

New York- John F. Kennedy International Airport

Washington D.C- Dulles International Airport

Orlando- Orlando International Airport

Mexico City- Benito Juarez Airport

Cancun- Cancun International Airport

Cusco- Alejandro Velasco Astete International Airport

Rio De Janeiro- Antonio Carlos Jobim International Airport

Cape Town- Cape Town International Airport

Nairobi- Jomo Kenyatta International Airport

Cairo- Cairo International Airport

Tel Aviv- Ben Gurion International Airport

Jerusalem- Atarot Airport

Moscow- Domodedovo International Airport

Oslo- Gardermoen Airport

Stockholm- Arlanda Airport

Berlin- Tegel Airport

Munich- Munich International Airport

Geneva – Geneva Cointrin International Airport

Vienna – Schwechat Airport

Prague – Ruzyně Airport

Istanbul – Atatürk International Airport

Athens -Athens International Airport,a.k.a,  “Elefthérios Venizélos”

Venice – Marco Polo Airport

Florence – Peretola Airport

Rome – Leonardo Da Vinci Fiumicino Airport

Casablanca – Mohammed V International Airport

Tangiers – Tangier-Boukhalef Airport

Madrid – Madrid Baraja International Airport

Barcelona – El Prat , Barcelona International Airport

Paris – Charles De Gaulle International Airport

Amsterdam – Amsterdam Airport Schiphol

Dublin – Aerfort Bhaile Átha Cliath

Edinburgh – Edinburgh Airport

Manchester – Manchester International Airport (originally known as Ringway Airport)

London – Heathrow International Airport

Dubai – Dubai International Airport

Jaipur – Sanganer Airport

Delhi – Indira Gandhi International Airport

Agra – Kheria Airport

Kathmandu – Tribhuvan International Airport

Mumbai-Bangkok-Brisbane-Sydney-Auckland-> ( Leg 1 )

Hong Kong-Shanghai-Beijing-Tokyo-> ( Leg 2 )

San Francisco-Los Angeles-Las Vegas-New York-Washington D.C-Orlando-> ( Leg 3 )

Mexico City-Cancun-Cusco-Rio De Janeiro-> ( Leg 4 )

Cape Town-Nairobi-Cairo-> ( Leg 5 )

Tel Aviv-Jerusalem-Moscow-Oslo-Stockholm-> ( Leg 6 )

Berlin-Munich-Geneva-Vienna-Prague-> ( Leg 7 )

Istanbul-Athens-Venice-Florence-Rome-> ( Leg 8 )

Casablanca-Tangiers-Madrid-Barcelona-> ( Leg 9 )

Paris-Amsterdam-Dublin-> ( Leg 10 )

Edinburgh-Manchester-London-Dubai-> ( Leg 11 )

Delhi-Jaipur-Agra-Kathmandu-Mumbai-> ( Leg 12 )

52 cities! And that’s not counting places like Kenya and Norway, where most of the tourism-ing will be done outside the cities!

And by that I mean visit 6 continents, 31 countries and 52 cities.