Travelling to New Zealand from India

Whoa, so that was the most bumpy journey I have ever experienced, and that says a lot given my track record of unlucky traveling (flashback to insane delays backpacking through Italy using FlixBus).

A “brief” timeline of the events:

• • Departure – We departed from Sharnga at around 17:00 IST.
  • Taxi ride – The taxi to the airport of usually three hours took nearly four thanks to a chess tournament in Chennai (when did chess become so big?!)
  • Chennai Airport – Finally we arrive at the airport, a bit stressed on time and I cannot even get my boarding pass before security even though we check in online. Why? Because my visa and passport numbers did not add up. One hour later after phone calls to New Zealand immigration we got clearance a minute before check-in closed. There was no way we were making it through security but they did not let us skip the line. A kind member of staff advised, say you are pregnant and can’t stand in a cue. So, that’s what we did and we made it to our gate.
  • Chennai runway – As we were rolling along the runway already with a one hour delay of departure, it was announced that the toilets in the plane were malfunctioning and so the pilot was advised to return to the airport to get them checked.
  • Chennai airport – We waited an hour in the plane while everything got fixed and then we were given the green light to depart again. There was no way we would make our connecting flight with now a two hour delay!
  • Malaysia airport – Miraculously we landed within 15 min till our next flight, made it to our gate and immediately boarded, jumping from a four hour flight to 6 1/2 hour flight with no leg stretching, but we were on!
  • Auckland airport:
    • Again my visa and passport number mismatch caused confusion but was resolved quicker than on the Indian side.
    • At the luggage carousel Mahiran’s luggage never arrived and we came to know it was stuck in Malaysia (never got any compensation for that one).
    • My suitcase gets taken to the hazardous items area and Matteo’s home-made honey and our home-made dried mangoes got confiscated (for good cause – ecological conservation), but still that hurt.
  • Uber journey – Went smoothly?! damn..
  • Torbay temporary home – After a kind welcome at three AM we spent a night in a freezing room with no heater wearing too many layers and snuggling up to each other to stay warm.

But we made it, and we were so happy to be in BEAUTIFUL New Zealand <3