The day after the finals of the Road to Wimbledon Kolkata we expected a simple day’s travel to Chandigarh. A taxi to airport, then a quick flight to Delhi and another flight northwards to Chandigarh, where we were due to meet the club and CILTA officials to set up the week's arrangements.
But it did not quite work out that way.
As can be the case sometimes, Delhi fog prevented us taking off from Kolkata on time, so we missed our connecting flight in Chandigarh, and had to plan an alternative way to get there. We had a 10 am clinic with the Road to Wimbledon players on the Tuesday morning and there was no way could we miss that.
We battled through the Kolkata traffic to the airport and eventually took off on an amazing Dreamliner plane to Delhi.
Delhi airport is fairly large and fairly busy and finding and communicating with our mini bus drivers, kindly organised for us by the All India Tennis Association, was interesting to say the least amongst a mass of people and taxis.
We were then treated to the journey of a lifetime, leaving Delhi at 8pm and arriving at the hotel in Chandigarh in the early hours of the morning. The thick fog refused to lift, which meant we passed the journey in a mixture of laughter and silence as we could hear but not see the Indian traffic around us.
A blessing in disguise came in the form of a Domino’s pizza restaurant which appeared from nowhere, a welcome pause from the travel traumas, until eventually our brilliant and trustworthy driver, assisted by Tim along the way, delivered us safely to our hotel.
Upon arrival, we were straight to the club to carry on what we are here to do... promote the Road to Wimbledon and HSBC’s involvement in the four Road to Wimbledon events and lap up the pleasure it will be here in Chandigarh to see the club and Chandigarh Tennis Academy. More on that soon.
