Unaccompanied Baggage: Take a Woman!

Nick-H

Final clear-out of stuff left at a friend's flat in London for the past year or so resulted in three cartons, a total of nearly 70 Kilos of stuff, to be despatched to India.

I contacted a company who told me that it was cheaper and easier to send by air as unaccompanied (acapella?) baggage than by sea, and these guys collected the boxes last Monday, knowing that I was flying to India this Monday.

Got a call today, Wednesday, to say that the shipment had arrived.

First we had to go to an agent's office, pay them a small amount of money to get release documents, and then to the cargo depot at the airport.

There is a wonderful flow-chart on the wall, telling exactly the procedure to be followed --- except that half of it seems to be in abbreviations and jargon!

But we were quickly caught hold of by a guy who directed us to the correct window with the correct form to start the procedure off --- and then corrected all the errors I had made on the form and the woman had keyed in to the computer.

Then to Customs first visit where the guy signed the form.

Coming in and out of the main hall was most difficult, as many, many barrows and small trucks carrying vast amounts of baggage were amassed (not at all in lines) any way they would fit in the outside yard, with barely an inch or two to walk through, and sometimes the need to climb over, and always the fear that a balanced fridge might topple from the pile. We had to do this several times.

The exact sequence of visits to offices and papers obtained, signed, stamped and taken away from us is something I could not possibly remember. Sometimes we seemed to be carrying sheaths of paper; sometimes barely a sheet. Often we were chasing after some guy carrying our papers and moving us on to the next procedure.

Eventually we were taken to a warehouse, and asked to look around and see if we could spot our boxes. I spotted one box with our shipping-company name on it. It was badly damaged, and I was a little worried. But there were five or six from the same company, and our three were ok.

Then back to the customs guys. The man who was helping us out at this point went into the customs office and asked a guy to come out to physically check our boxes. Waiting for that X-ray scanner would have taken hours and hours, I guess!

He looked in each box, and no doubt wondered why on earth we were bringing three boxes of old clothes and trinkets to India. If he wasn't, I was!

Back into the main hall again, more sheaths of paper to be stamped and signed for customs.

Mrs N asked me... had I noticed that (apart from two workers in booths behind glass walls) she was the only woman in the place? I hadn't.

Papers back from customs, one more fee to pay to the Airline Authority at another window, Rs320.

We found our main helper, who found us a porter, who trundled the consignment out to the gate (two more checks, documents stamped, exit approved, on the way) and I fetched the car.

One guy inside had said, "do not give any money to anyone, except the porter who takes the stuff out for you; you can give him Rs.50". So we did.

The whole thing took less than two hours, even though, at the time we seemed to be waiting around a lot.

We could have employed an agent to do the whole thing; it would have cost a little more only --- but I wanted the experience and got it.

The place was full of helpful people, not one of whom asked for any tip or bribe. A pretty positive experience!

Oh, and taking a woman? Mrs N said that most of the guys there were thoroughly embarassed at her presence in their macho workplace, and that was partly why we got so much help

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capt_mahajan

She's probably right, only woman or not.

A man running around in a bureaucratic setup gets little sympathy. He may have taken time off from work, he may be hassled.. but its par for the course.

A female, though, is often treated differently. She is somehow not supposed to be part of that jungle, and is treated more delicately. Regardless of whether she is working or not.

Of course, if she looks poor, all bets may be off.

PS: IMHO, this holds true for most of the country. The North/Central India is an exception of sorts, no different treatment in at least some of the cities I have experience of.

And in Mumbai, too, to some extent, though Mumbai is more efficient than most cities anyway.

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Aishah

Interesting read, Nick! Another thought might be having a woman with you, they want to do your job as fast as possible and get rid of you both! Two hours might be very fast for them!
Reminds me of RTO office here - they seem totally confused with a woman turning up and a foreigner to boot. I had the feeliing they just wanted to get rid of me! Things moved a bit when I sat outside and my nephew continued with them.. but this is still an ongoing story in another thread...
I think 'Take a woman with you' is a very good idea.

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brownboy66

I agree! I try to take one with me where ever I go too. Usually.....its the same woman (in fact she sorts of insists on coming along.....)

Nick-H

Yes, I think they wanted to get us out as soon as possible; our Chennai men can be quite coy in a way!

But I have to say that they really were helpful and co-operative, and we did appreciate it.

There was a tout outside, of course... and I have to say we only did it because we didn't have anything better to do. It may not be such a good idea to pick up a tout outside the premises, although he was offerring to do the job for a mere Rs.500, but employing a clearance agent, and maybe even getting the stuff delivered, would be an idea for the busier people.

Of course, it was a door-to-port service only. I could have sent it door-to-door, but the quote I had for that was about three times the cost!

aadil

The reason why it was so simple was that there was not much of any value to the customs guys or the touts so it was pretty easy, now try to get some TV, DVD player, AC or any other big household appliances and see the marked difference in the attitude as well as fees involved in getting them out safely!!! Yes, having a woman around may help sometimes but not always, especially if it is only the woman who has to get these things done.

Cheers,
Aadil.

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Nick-H

Yes, indeed!

But it must be tough being a customs officer: even when they value strictly by the book, I bet everyone argues like crazy!