Opportunities Today :- August 2004 Issue

From TURKEY to INDIA by road in search of quality education

 

Umit is one more of several overseas students who has come to India this year to undergo Travel and Tourism training by attending IATA/UFTAA Foundation Course at IHCTM. He will be appearing for his IATA/UFTAA Foundation Examination to be held in Mumbai on 12th September 2004. Here Umit narrates in his own way of how he made it to India, that too by road in search of quality education…..


I chose travel and tourism as a career as I was always interested in travelling, learning foreign languages and meeting people. I wanted to study in English speaking environment and although India was not my first choice for this but I knew that in order to pursue a travel career an IATA/UFTAA qualification would be a major advantage for global career opportunities. I visited the IATA website (http://www.iata.org/atdi) and I looked at the list of countries offering IATA/UFTAA training through authorized training centres and I found India and IHCTM.


Thereafter I visited the website of IHCTM (http://www.rbcsgroup.com) and I was truly impressed by Subhash Motwani's C.V. as he had completed 21 IATA qualifications and I shot an e-mail to Mr Motwani showing my interest to enrol for the IATA/UFTAA Foundation Course. I was glad to know that it is more affordable to pursue the course in India than Europe and I received a prompt and positive respond from Mr Motwani and then I chalked out a plan so that it would be cost effective for me to travel to India and I decided to come overland and took help of a few maps and whatever information I could gather. I got my visa and as Ataturk - the founder of Republic of Turkey once said, I headed East on 24th April to take education, “even if it is in China”. 


First I took the bus from Bursa to Dogu Beyazit, a small town after Agri in Turkey. After 24 hours of travel by bus I reached Agri. The driver asked me to change the bus. Though I had a ticket upto Dogu Beyazit, I had to pay the difference to hop on to the second bus. I paid the same as I didn't want a problem on the first day especially as the bus crew member was quite gigantic and not very polite. It was the first alarm in my journey and much before I left my country. Thereafter I crossed the border by van. After the border and into Iran I arrived at Bazargan village and from there I took a taxi to Maku bus station. On the way, I tasted some Iranian food . On the bus the driver told me “ You will get taken anyway , at least let your Turkish brother earn some money” and he persuaded me to change some money at a low rate. From Maku I took the bus to Tehran and reached Tehran the following morning.


I was planning to stay in Tehran but changed my mind as I thought that the longer I stay at various transit points, the more I am likely to be cheated and my reaching to India overland would remain a dream. And so I took a taxi to get to another bus station and after 20 hours on the bus I reached at 0600 hours the following morning at Zahedan. I checked in at a hotel for some rest. After few hours rest, I checked out at noon. And headed to the Pakistan border by taxi. Between the two borders, I had to travel on the back of a pick up truck. At the border, one Pakistani soldier was very friendly. He offered me cold water and knowing that I was from Turkey, to my pleasant surprise he started singing Turkish songs. I took some snaps with him and proceeded to customs by taking a ride on another pick up truck. After immigration, I was in Taftan city in Baluchistan. From here I took a bus to Quetta. In the bus, I met 3 Pakistanis and an Iranian. I had a nice time with them. They were singing Urdu songs. One of them gave me a small embroidered bag, which was used by me to keep my passport for the rest of my journey. I am really thankful to them as the most difficult part of the journey was not that bad. 


Next morning in Quetta, one of the Pakistanis left for Karachi and the others invited me to their friend's house. We had breakfast and talked about our countries. After the refreshing break, we went to railway station. Here we got separated as me and the Iranian- Cavit took the road to Lahore and others to Hyderabad. After a long, hot and dusty travel, we arrived in Lahore. While passing through the desert in night, I inhaled a strong rose scent, which was very strong to inhale. But my doubt got cleared, when I saw a Lux soap factory. I was checking for a cheap hotel in Lahore but Cavit invited me to stay with him at his University hostel as he was studying at a University in Lahore. And without a second thought, I accepted it. I spent the whole day with Cavit and his friends. It was a really nice experience.


I had lunch with other students after a refreshing shower and then went to a cyber café, played video games and after dinner we watched movies and drank some “non-alcoholic” beer. I thought this would have been the most difficult part of the trip but here I was enjoying myself and having strawberry milkshake. Next morning, Cavit arranged for a taxi for the India border and thanks to Cavit who bargained with the taxi driver, for the first time I travelled without paying excess money. It took me exactly one week and one hour to reach India from where I started in Turkey. After immigration and customs, I went to Amritsar by taxi.  


I exchanged Pakistani rupees for Indian rupees (which I didn't spend much, thanks to the Pakistani friends) and booked for the next day train to Delhi.I checked in at a hotel close to the railway station. I wanted to visit the Golden Temple later and as it was raining very heavily I could manage to reach the Golden Temple only after 7.30pm. I said to myself that if I miss this opportunity I will not be able to see the Golden Temple and I wore my coat and due to the heavy rain in Amritsar I was standing at the entrance of the temple and was greeted by a shower of sparks and rain. Sparks were flying around as the electric cables were touching each other and I spent the evening at the temple and returned back to the hotel almost at midnight. The following morning I took the train to arrive comfortably in an airconditioned trained into Delhi the same evening. I checked in at a hotel in the main bazaar area. I was not feeling well so I rested for some time. I expected this as I had heard that it is a well known thing that happens to foreigners who are not acquainted with the bacterial flora of India and I had an upset stomach. 


Next morning I took a walk to the India Gate and I met one person who was a journalist. He advised me to go to Tourism Bureau and gave me a lift on his motorcycle. There I made the arrangements for a Delhi city tour by car, Agra city tour by bus and I also bought my train tickets from Agra to Jaipur and Jaipur to Mumbai. I had an interesting tour of Delhi visiting a combination of monuments and souvenir shops and returned back to my hotel room where I unwound myself with a glass of beer and it was relaxing to have a glass of beer after a very long time. Early next morning I took the bus to Agra and on arrival at Agra I took a rickshaw for a local tour of the city. I saw the famous Taj Mahal and several other souvenir shops. As I was retiring to bed that evening I saw two lizards in my room and called someone from the hotel to enquire about these reptiles. I was told that they were there so that I could get a good night's sleep as they would drive the mosquitoes away. I preferred staying awake to watch a few Bollywood Movies and I didn't know when I slept.


I got up late and I ran to the railway station to reconfirm my ticket and get my seat no and I reached 25 minutes after the scheduled departure time of the train. However, the train was in no hurry and it came 2 hours late. I utilized that time to talk to an American at the station who I met later once again in Mumbai. I arrived the same evening in Jaipur and went to the Evergreen Guest House which I would say was one of my most pleasant places I stayed in my entire trip. 


The guest house was square shaped with a green courtyard. Some guests were playing guitar, some were playing Frisbee and some were just relaxing by reading a book. There was an open-air restaurant as well. I took a rickshaw to go around town. However, almost everything was closed and the rickshaw driver was well aware and yet he got paid for the “ride” that he took me for. I had ill luck the following day as well as again everything was closed due to the elections. I was aware that Jaipur is famous for stones and there are many people who entice foreigners. I too had an interesting experience which happened to me almost four times during the stay in Jaipur. Someone approaches you on a motorbike and asks you whether he could be of any assistance. The man helplessly complained that tourists come to Jaipur and don't converse with locals and the locals therefore cannot improve their English. They are only interested in sightseeing. He further added that if you don't talk to locals how will we learn about each other's culture.


Then he invited me to have a chat and cup of tea and during the course of the conversation I was told “ by the way, my uncle owns a jewelry shop, why don't you come and have a look?” and then they take out imitations from velvet wrappers and showed me “this ruby is only 7 $ , this diamond is only 10$ “ Well, obviously I didn't buy them. So after an eventful stay in Jaipur where I would have been sold imitation jewelry atleast 4 times, I left for Mumbai the following day. I arrived at the station two hours prior to departure and I could not reconfirm my seat. As a result I had to spend 18 hours in the train without any seat. I spent a few hours near the aisle or the toilet door or under the lavabo. The conductor stared at me very sarcastically but the scorpion in my pocket did not let me give him anything! At 8 am on the following day I finally reached Mumbai the destination of my journey and the origin of my travel training. When you decide to do something the crucial moment is that you must choose the right place and do it at the right time and that should be the first step that you take. And this step can be your elevator to one of the spacious offices upstairs or it could be the marsh also. I ventured to do this and set sail towards new horizons. Fortunately, my feet are dry now.


At the time of printing this interesting and invigorating experience of Umit's journey to India, Umit is on the verge of completing his training for the IATA/UFTAA Foundation course at IHCTM and his experience appears to be pleasant enough as he has made the most of the opportunity by enrolling for the IATA/FIATA Cargo Introductory and Dangerous Goods courses as well. He will appear for his IATA/FIATA Dangerous Goods examination in India in October after completing his training at IHCTM and will return back to Turkey and give his IATA/FIATA Cargo Introductory Exam in April 2005. We wish Umit all the best that his journey back to Turkey is more interesting and eventful now that he would be a travel professional after completing his IATA/UFTAA Foundation Course