IF YOU are planning to visit India, particularly eastern and northern India, at this time of the year, you may be well advised to choose flights within the country that land and take off in the afternoons.

Otherwise, there is a good chance that your entire travel schedule and your booking may be upset.

During winter, northern and eastern India regularly get enveloped in a thick blanket of fog that reduces visibility to just a few metres.

That throws flight and train schedules out of gear and the usually crowded airports and railway stations become more so, with angry, muttering passengers cursing the weather, the airlines and themselves for choosing to travel on such a day.

A Delhi metro rail worker controls the traffic amidst morning fog, in New Delhi, India, Monday, Dec. 29, 2008. Normal life in capital New Delhi and parts of northern India was affected Monday with rail and air traffic being hit due to dense fog and cold wave conditions.
Source: AP photo

Take today, for instance. According to the Meteorological department, the visibility was just 50 metres.

I didn’t need the Met chaps to tell me what was in store. I knew it when I went out for my usual morning walk to the nearby park at 5.30. I could not see the street lights till I was almost near the lampposts. And though there were fewer walkers in the park, one had to take extra care not to collide with those coming from the opposite direction.

The Delhi fog is peculiar. It has an eerie quality. It virtually blinds you, particularly if you are driving. The headlights of your car reflect back at you from the white rolling wall threatening to devour you. Even fog lights are of no help.

You have to be extremely careful while driving. The fog not only makes it difficult to see the road but it totally disorientates you.

The police issues regular advisories asking drivers to switch on the hazard lights while driving in foggy conditions and to follow the vehicle immediately ahead. The problem is that it could well become a case of the blind following the blind.

People commute amidst the fog on a chilly morning in the northern Indian city of Chandigarh December 29, 2008.
Source: REUTERS photo

There are innumerable stories of drivers taking the wrong turn and ending up at some unintended place.

Some people, wisely, park the car on the road side and sleep in the car till the fog clears up, rather than take the risk of driving in such difficult conditions.

Invariably, after every foggy night and morning, newspapers are full of pictures of some major accident or another.

One New Year morning some years ago, when the fog was really bad, more than a dozen vehicles were involved in a multiple collision on a bridge in eastern Delhi.

And this is what the fog did to travellers today: airport and railway officials said several international and domestic flights were delayed for hours and two domestic flights cancelled. Several trains were running hours behind schedule.

But let all this not frighten you if you are intending to travel to India. Because winter is the best time to visit the country.

But just be prepared. Your flight may be delayed, or cancelled or you may be taken to a different destination where the plane can land.

After all, what is travel without some unplanned adventure!