And it rained on my parade ...

Finally ... writing this from the comfort of my hotel room in Yokohama, Japan ... but this trip has not at all been easy ...
It has been an adventure ... sort off ... here is an account ...

We were supposed to fly to Japan on the 26th night at around 11:30 from the Sahar Airport in Mumbai ...
Just to be safe, we decided to leave early morning on the 26th by train ...

I woke up in Pune, at 6:00 am to heavy torrential rains ... like there was no tomorrow ...
When we reached the train station, it was still raining ...

We got into the Pragati Express and headed to Mumbai ...
The rain was unrelentless ... it was just pouring all the while with no letting down ...

On the way, the train stalled at the Vittalwadi station, as the tracks were flooded with water and the train could not proceed ...

We were stalled at the station for 3 hours ... before Gaurang's ( my team mate ) dad arranged for a car to pick us up ...
Gaurang's grandparents were also accompanying us ...

The car picked us all up and took us to Mumbai ...
On the way to the Airport, the road ahead got flooded and we got stranded ...
All the cars stopped on the road and there was a pathetic traffic jam ...

Somehow, we switched roads and ended up in front of a eating joint at around 5 pm
The rain was so bad, that all the umbrellas and everything was useless ...

We were stuck there till about 10 pm

Then, once the rain got a bit less, the water started receding and we decided to make our way to the airport ...

On the way, got stuck up at a very bad traffic jam ...
We then got the news that our flights had gotten cancelled ...

On our way out, we landed up at another water clogged place ... where the driver just stopped the car and let it stand ...
There were 5 of us ... trapped inside a car ... with knee deep water all around us ..
We even couldnt open the windows as the rain water would come in ...

Finally at 3 am, we started moving ... and landed up at a hotel at 4 am in the morning ...
We luckily got a room there, and stayed there for 2 days ... before Mumbai got back on its feet ...

The flights were still not leaving ... so we came to Pune, took a flight to Delhi and then to Japan ...
Though we missed one day, the people here, made arrangements for us ... so it was not a problem ...

More about the Japan trip later ...
Here are some pictures that we took of the entire rain onslaught thingy ... the next day ... once most of the water had pulled away and we could analyse the damage done ...

The worst thing was that people had left their cars ... thousands of them on the street and walked away ... many of these cars were still lying there when we saw it the second day after the rain ...

Motorcycle abandoned on way to hotel

Crap in car ... Leaves, sticks ... water hyacinths even ... that were stuck in car radiators, motors, etc ...