Saved by a Towel.

Finally. I manage to get the trip started. And as expected the initial days of the trip were very interesting. We departure from Warsaw according to plan on Wednesday morning. And we were supposed to change in Moscow for the flight to New Delhi. Unfortunately we missed it. This resulted that we had a pleasure to appreciate beautiful airport in Moscow for next 48h. Since we did not have Russia visa, we could not leave the airport...



Before I went for the trip I got many advices. One of them was to keep towel always in a hand luggage as the most useful item for traveling. Now I am sure that a towel is not only important for the travel to Galaxy, but it is important for any type of travel.


"A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.
More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with." — Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Or maybe it is my own start of hitchhiking to galaxy?

48h spent on the Moscow airport was not bad at all (if one has a towel with him). I guess I finally found time to get enough sleep.
On Saturday morning we reached New Delhi after almost 4 days of traveling. Initially I was considering to come to India by land. It would take longer, but I guess only 3 times longer.... maybe I will do the land trip next time ;)


UPDATE:
Towel was really crucial for hitchhiking - see one of my last post here.