What can possibly happen when a group of 4 friends spend 12 hours in an unknown city ?!
Definitely an adventure they weren't exactly expecting
Caution: Jab We Met references ahead!
After spending some amazing time at Pondi, the 4 of us (2 guys & 2 girls) had our flight back to Mumbai from Chennai early morning.
The flight was at 6am which meant we would leave the hotel at around 4am.
Being the budget travelers that we are and knowing that we'd have just a few hours to spend in Chennai, we booked 2 rooms at a Chennai hotel for dirt cheap rates.
Proud of the money we could save, we left Pondi and arrived at our Chennai hotel around 4pm.
It's just 12 hours before we have to leave this place!
To our surprise, we notice a shady bar right next to the entrance of the hotel. Okayyy! Let's ignore it for now.
The receptionist sees us and seems concerned so we ask him if all is okay with our booking, which is when he tells us that the hotel is subject to frequent police raids and so, girls and guys can't be together.
Of course that shady bar next door was responsible for this!
We assure that we wouldn't be together in a room and very worriedly he hands us the keys to our rooms.
Unfortunately, the rooms are on the 3rd floor and at 2 ends of a long passage. Yes, we're beginning to feel scared now!
Not completely sure of what to do next, we girls strictly decide to stay away from the guys' room. We even end up giving a code word and a knocking pattern to the guys so we open the door only to them if need be. To avoid any controversial situation, we communicate only over the phone and decide to step out of the hotel and spend the rest of our time at a nearby mall.
Time goes by watching a movie and having dinner and joking & laughing about how we'd escape the hotel through the back door, Jab We Met style, in case there is a RAID afterall!
We completely forget about our worries until it's time to go back.
We plan to leave for the airport earlier than required and book a cab for 3 am.
Wishing each other good night, we lock ourselves in our respective rooms.
Midnight already! It's just a matter of few hours now, what could possibly go wrong, isn't it ?!
And we know Karate okay!
My friend and I pack our stuff up so we're ready to leave the next morning as soon as the cab arrives, and we finally decide to get the few hours of sleep.
Freaked out that we are, we sleep for around 15 mins when we hear a police siren. We both jump out of the bed at the exact same time, the exact same style, fearing the worst. We sit there waiting while the guys sleep peacefully through our calls and messages!
When there's nothing for the next 15 minutes we realize it is probably just a passing police van.
We lie down for the next 2 hours tossing and turning until the alarm finally goes off.
We hurriedly freshen up and leave our rooms, return the room keys and wait for our cab.
The cab arrives right on time waiting on the opposite side of the road. We walk to the cab and are helping the driver load the luggage when a police van quietly stops right next to us!
2 guys & 2 girls, 3 am & our "Hotel Decent"
Damn the odds are stacked up against us. We now fear the worst!
The police officer asks my friend our whereabouts and she stands there numb. I'm already imagining sitting inside the police van and being taken away!
He then turns to me and I tell him about our vacation and our flight.
Then comes the next question.. Where were we staying ?!
There's just one hotel around so no point lying and messing around, I tell him about our "Hotel Decent"
Before he can ask anymore questions, we tell him that we'd be late for our flight and hurriedly get in the cab, shut the doors and ask the driver to ZOOM AWAY!!!
The last thing we see is the police van turning into the entrance of our #shadyhotel and we can't thank our stars enough for the perfect escape timing.
100s of trips & flights but trust me, seeing the airport has never felt sooo peaceful!
Absolutely not denying that we did take a really big risk staying at that hotel but today it is one of my life's most memorable event!
#ShadyHotel #Bollywood #JabWeMet #HotelDecent
