It’s about time, i started to update my blog, as it seems to be nearly dead :P!
I got enrolled in ESC Rennes, a Business school in Rennes, France. So after my semester i had planned to go back home, ( india ) and, was on my way to Paris.
A Friend Ahmed drove me to Paris, to an area called * De La Chateau* something, it was near a station called M12. I had arrive on about 6pm and i had my friend James waiting for me in the other end. it as like -4Â degrees in paris and apparently i didn’t check the temperature before starting off form Rennes. So i was ill-equipped for that cold, and paris being so large, it took james about 2hrs to find the correct M12 ( de la chateau ) lool, as there seem to be many.
Finally we got going, and took couple of trains , and Finally Buss no 132 to be at the place where we were suppose to be at, while boarding down, we boarded another buss near Place du Italy, it was about 12am nearly and i was with a lot of baggage ( 1 large suitcase with a hand carry and 2 backpacks ), after 30 mins of this buss ride, we finally came to our stop ( i do not remember the exact name of the stop, while doing so an elderly woman fell in the buss as the driver suddenly halted the bus at the stop, i had to take out my backpack to lift the lady up from the floor, and meanwhile james started to unload the suitcases and as i got down the buss, i reached out to take my bag from the door the buss driver closed the door suddenly and sped off with me running behind the buss and shouting.
i had almost everything in that backpack ( cash of 1030 euros, my wallet, my passport ( yes my passport ), my laptop ( macbook pro ) , all my originals ( degree, memo…etc ), and my adventure began lol.
we dumped my luggage at James’s friends place and flagged down a buss to use the bus’s intercom to call that particular bus’s driver to ask him to check on my backpack., but none of the drivers could help me on this.
i spent the next 5 hours on parisian street check all Bus no 67 which were operating that night, then we were asked to go to central bus depot at Place du Italie, when we reached there no one would give us a response, then finally after 2 more hours, someone suggested us to go to a depot de central, me and James made our way down there, we were met with 2 RATP officers who took us inside a room and began to ask us questions on unattended baggages, they would not declare if they found anything, they asked for description and content details. We were made to wait for more 2 hours at the reception area, we gladly waited as it was -8 and as earlier stated i was very ill equipped to handle but adrenaline kept me going as i needed to find my bag ASAP i lost my passport money and all original documents , i was flying out at 1pm next day.
After a long wait they asked me to provide a ID so they can authenticate me, i said all my ID is in the bag, he then asked me to write on a piece of paper exactly what was in the bag including ID details. later he showed up with my Laptop asked me to enter the password to open the computer, which i did. They then gave us a long lecture about not leaving bags unattended and stressed on the point saying if i had not come looking for it ( the same night ), i would have most likely not found it.
i found all my cash, wallet, credit cards, phones, laptop, passport and Original Documents intact with the exception of a chocolate bar .
i learned something very important from this experience, don’t keep all your eggs in the same basket!! and i keep my passport and Carte de Sejour in my Front jeans/trousers pocket when i travel as i will know if they are missing or misplaced immediately and refrain from using those pockets for anything else during my travel with those documents.
I would like to thank everyone at RATP, for being vigilant and recovering my property and identity to some extent 😉
-December 19, 2009
Uncensored 