Goodbye Big Apple, Hello Big Adventure

© Flickr / RkRao

I began to question my decision to quit my job and trade my car in for a one-way plane ticket to India, the moment I stepped out of customs in New Delhi and realized my ride to the hotel was nowhere to be seen. As I self-conciously paraded past the stream of people gathered in the airport's arrivals lounge, I  scanned their faces in search of my bearded 26-year-old cousin.  He and his wife had been backpacking through India for the last eight months and he'd assured me when I'd agreed to join them that he'd be there to meet my flight and escort me to our hotel. Only apparently something had gone wrong, because I didn't see him or his wife anywhere.

It was approaching midnight on a Saturday, the airport was closed and I was alone in a foreign country with only a handful of traveler's checks and 100 dollars in American currency. Neither my cousin nor his wife had a cell phone and I didn't have the hotel's phone number or even the name, which meant that even if I could locate a pay-phone, there was no one I could call. I thought I'd come well-prepared. Inside my backpack were malaria pills, Imodium, photocopies of my passport, a giant bag of Doritos and enough toilet paper to mummify a baby elephant.  But in all of the predicaments I'd imagined I might find myself in while in India, I never thought that being stranded in the airport would be one of them. 

© Flickr / _Gene_Now, as I anxiously peered out the exit, I wondered what my friends and family would say when they learned that I'd given up my waterfront, Brooklyn Heights two-bedroom apartment and job at a publishing company for 20 minutes in an Indian airport. I imagined the tisk-tisking and  'I told you so's' they'd murmur when I called them from New York to tell them that I'd flown 20 hours and half way across the world only to have to fly back again because I'd neglected to write down the name of my hotel.

Realizing that my cousin could be waiting curbside, I fought back a rising panic and stepped outside.  I'd expected to see a parking garage or taxi stand and was surprised to find only a field of red dirt, a chain-link fence, a gutted station-wagon and a cow.  I'd barely ever seen a cow outside a dairy ad and so to find one sprawled nonchalantly outside of baggage claim came as a shock.  The large, brown animal regarded me with bored, half-lidded eyes as I stared at him in horror.  I'd come to India looking for an adventure, but in my head that had involved a camel ride and a sun-set tour of the Taj Majal, not death by way of Stampeding Bovine.  I spun on my heels and made for a hasty retreat back inside, where to my relief, I spotted my cousin ambling toward me. 

"I couldn't find you!" I scolded, after hugging him hello.

He looked confused."I was waiting outside the whole time..." He pointed toward the exit. Not the discreet, side-door I'd just taken, but the double-doored one with the word 'Exit' printed in large lettering above it. A door that I'd somehow failed to notice the entire time I'd been frantically pacing in front of customs.

That wasn't the first time that my lack of attention to detail and poor planning had nearly gotten me into trouble and as I would discover in the months to follow, it wouldn't be the last time, either.