Email to:Airport Thriller In Three Parts!
*Ed’s note: Readers of kerriejean.com know that I am to say the least, a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very terrified flyer. And I am not an advocate of anti-anxiety medications or salad vegetables of any description. However, I do fly Air Valium on the rare occasions when camels, hydrofoils, automobiles, trams, trains, ferries, angel wings or penny farthing bicycles are NOT personal transport options.
This story is a tribute to the tenacity of the hundreds of thousands of good folk still waiting to mount their flying kangaroos at airports throughout the Free World.
Read on……….
ONE GOOD TRIP: THREE GREAT AIRPORTS
My Trip: 1987: Sydney to Bangkok, on to New Delhi, into Moscow.
[Blast off! Cr: San Diego Air & Space Museum: flickr]
Bangkok Airport:
Blood valium level high. Slump on terminal lounge with travelling companion, Dickie.
Suddenly felt need to connect with the real Thailand.
Stumble into the exhilarating humidity.
Feel something of menacing proportions digging into my back………..
Ah, so that’s what’s wrong………
Thai military officer armed with machine gun is pointing to sign in many languages.
English version says: People Entering This Thai Air Force Facility Will Be Shot On Sight.
Upshot: Through the big glass terminal windows, Dickie is surprised to see me being escorted – with a machine gun in my rear - back to traditional slump position.
[Ed's note: *Reason for machine gun accessory: Thai-Laotian border war]
New Delhi Airport:
[Ed's note: vessel of conveyance on the Bangkok -New Delhi leg had been Aeroflot]
Mid-flight Stress levels had been very, very, very, very, very high because the plane looked like it’d survived a Cold War dogfight over The Bay Of Pigs.
By the time we banged up and down the runway at New Delhi, both me and my blood valium level were through the canvas roof.
Boy oh boy, those customs folks at New Delhi were really something…..
Could have been the dilated pupils, could have been my demeanour [hanging off Dickie yelling: 'I don't think I can make to London Dickie, I really don't think I can make it to London Dickie.....'] but it doesn’t really matter because the result was the same……
Ending up in a room wallpapered with posters saying horrible things like People Have Been Killed For Far Less Than Whatever You’ve Done .
And being body searched by public servants in turbans.
They were okay.
And sometimes a gentle laying of hands on and in a person can have a calming effect.
After the public servants were quite sure they were dealing with a victim of legal drugs I got dressed and stumbled back to Dickie.
I still have the copy of the Karma Sutra he bought me while I was absent.
Moscow Airport: Pre-Perestroika
Blood valium level: If printouts existed, they’d be in a Museum Of Benzodiazepine Science.
Stumble towards customs……
Well I never…..in all my valium flying days, I’d never have come across anything like this….
What a charming bunch of border protection officers……
Was it their collective beauty?
Was it their sleek hand guns?
Was it their superdooper uniforms? [Just how many gold hammers and sickles can one Soviet Adonis have hanging from his very person?]
Overwhelmed, but finally breaking through the valium haze, I verbally presented my credentials:
Bad airports are all alike…..
But every beautiful airport is beautiful in its own way……
[Adonis] Eh?
[Me] Mister Tolstoy, no less!
I stumbled out of Moscow Airport.
Dickie walked.
The temperature was minus 73.
Dickie said I’d need more than a red beanie and tartan mini-skirt.
I said I was just glad to be in one piece.
He said I’d better make the most of this holiday because if I thought he’d ever accompany me on one again, I was sadly mistaken.
**********************************************************
What do you do when friends behave in an unreasonable fashion?
What’s the worst trip you’ve ever had?
Should people terrified of flying just grow up?
Are you stuck at an airport?
Did this story help pass the time?
It would be lovely to hear from you………start the process NOW by:
Just clicking on the ‘comment’ thingo and following the simple instructions. The place to write your gems is at the bottom of the last published comment. *A little bit of counsel for people new to this caper. Your email (just called ‘mail’ in this case) address does NOT come up on site. And just ignore the URL thingo.
Prawn Cutlet Award
November 1st, 2011 at 10:30 am
Travel tale 1:
10am, July 1998, sitting at Sydney Airport. Waiting for Qantas departure for Hawaii and LAX at 10.30am. Been there since 6am. Done duty-free, done immigration, done passenger tax etc. Sitting at Sydney Airport.
Announcement: Sorry passengers (yes, nice old-fashioned greeting we used to get before ‘client’ came in vogue . . .) there’s a mechanical fault in our 747 for Honolulu. There will be a delay.
Shuffles all round. Some queuing at departure lounge has already started. American high school basketball team start getting agitated, mumbling . . . (US airplanes obviously don’t experience technical difficulties . . .)
10.30am: Announcement that a door catch indicator light that won’t turn off is the reason for the delay. Sitting at Sydney Airport
11am: Announcement from Qantas apologising for delay; freebie coffee and muffins available for morning tea. Apologies all round. Still sitting . . .
11.30am: Door light still not cooperating. Caffeinated groans, shuffling, still sitting . . .
Noon: A technician seems to have solved the problem at last – boarding will commence in half an hour. Still sitting . . .
1pm: Boarded at last . . . still sitting but at least in our designated seats and about to leave!
Lots of Qantas apologies over the intercom, extra water served!
Plane lands in Hawaii, 9.5 hours later, at 4.30am local time; originally due at midnight. One hundred of us are booked on Air Canada’s connecting flight to Vancouver that left two hours previously!
Minor panic amongst airport staff who are keen to get home to their own families rather than look after all of us in a transit lounge . . .
A Qantas representative arrives. Takes all our details. We’re given an overnight and day, at Qantas expense, in Honolulu and, hopefully, a connecting flight to Vancouver.
Lovely hotel, awesome meals (US style, huge, questionable dietary value . . . but who’s arguing . . .) a quick free phone call to Canada to tell the waiting relatives not to go to the airport.
Next morning, out to Pearl Harbour, tour and museum, then to Ala Moana shopping centre for retail therapy, a stroll along Maui beach, getting lost on a Hawaiian bus and back to the airport later that evening.
We then learn that the Air Canada flight is now filled to the gunnels and would some of us like to take tomorrow’s flight in return for an upgrade /$1000/ extra day in Honolulu so people can be bumped off?
A few take up the offer, thankfully, and we’re into the air, again.
In contrast to the experiences of many on the flying kangaroo over the last few days, our experience went well, in hindsight. Qantas did all they could to ensure we were looked after (at their expense) and, in most cases, only minor inconvenience was caused.
Dear Palm Avenue,
Yes, I rate this as a superdooper/professional/hospitable response to a faulty door catch indicator light – which every person who respects life would REALLY want fixed…….
However, I fear I may have left the airport in a fast moving taxi the moment a ‘FAULTY’ anything was mentioned.
I trust Vancouver was nice…….
KJ.