My return journey from US to Bangalore is much better than my forward trip, I was able to get sleep and I did not have much of jet lag (in this case jet ahead), and I am on toes from the next day itself at Bangalore.
I reached Bangalore on Sunday night around ten at new Bangalore International Airport. From the flight, airport looked good at night, did not have camera at that time to take a shot. Immigration area had almost 15 counters, and almost all counters had staff. So it was pretty quick out of immigration check, even faster than my immigration at San Francisco. Anyway I had some other problem during immigration at US, more on that on a later post.
Soon out of immigration went to Security Check! None of the airports through my trip had Security check during arrival including SanFrancisco, HongKong, Singapore. Even during my previous trips in flight, I don’t remember going through security check when arriving. And it had only one counter and one person and was doing security check only for the baggages. I still could not figure out the purpose of that security check. And as this had only one counter, it took more time than immigration.
After finishing security check, went to collect the checked in baggage. Found only two conveyor belts. May be there are some more conveyor belts for domestic flights. But still for international, this is not enough. But atleast the baggage came soon.
Proceeded next to customs. Two friendly customs official were standing, and just collected the filled in customs slip. No baggage checking, no queries, no tips, no hassles. And that’s it, I was out of all formalities within 45 minutes.
Now the biggest problem of all, reaching home from the new airport. As I had already read through some previous travelers blog about reaching home from BIAL airport, I was expecting it to be difficult. And I had found some better options to reach home, but this one did not work for me, as the service was not yet started when I came. I don’t know about the current status now.
Anyways, I went to the MERU airport taxi counter, and asked for taxi to my place, She asked me to go outside the airport complex. and catch a taxi which is there in the first lane. Once I went outside the building, I was approached by some taxi drivers like those auto drivers who do in railway station, asking for whether you are looking for a taxi. I just ignored them and informed I am going to take official taxi, and went ahead and found lot of official taxis waiting in the lane. They were green Mahindra Logans, looked sleek and cool. The other official cab is EASYCAB had white Mahindra logans. I just saw the first MERU cab’s driver, he saw me and he came and took my baggages and put it in the trunk and we are started.
Car was new and good as expected. But it did not have the Credit Card machine as advertised. It had an 11 inch monitor, which displayed the starting time of the travel, which is connected to the digital meter, which displayed the distance and the price.
The road from airport was pretty good, but had only two lanes for almost 10 kms from airport. After that it got widened. Raj Bhavan was exactly 35kms from the airport and to my place BTM Layout, the total distance was 46 kms. And at night 11 o clock, there was not much traffic. I was able to reach home in just few minutes more than an hour drive. And the meter was working fine as advertised Rs.15 per km, and gave the receipt as well. But these guys had an sticker, saying 50% extra at night. And the driver asked me to give 25% extra for night, pointing to that sticker. I asked for bill with the extra amount, and he said it does not give that. So it was basically tips for him. I gave extra 100 for him, while he was trying to bargain more.
Previously, I planned to take the Volvo bus from airport which they provided. But did not take them, since after reaching the closest bus stop from my home, which is less than two kilometers, I would not be able to reach home, since there may not be any auto at the night time. But later I found out there is better option to reach home from the bus stop, which the BMTC provided, exclusively for airport transfers.
