17 January 2010 Setting Out. Sunday morning is usually reserved for worshipping in community, but this morning was spent getting as clean and well-fed as possible before arriving at the airport. Though everything was meticulously listed, weighed, packed (and repacked), my mind must have been on overload because yesterday I ran a red light, and today I had already used the men's bathroom at Cracker Barrel before I even wondered why the women's restroom had urinals. Foreshadowing of many restroom anxieties . . . Happily, there were no big glitches at the airport . . . the long layovers might be tedious, but allowing for them actually cut down our travel tension. It was also such a treat to have so many friends and supporters praying for us . . . some even brought some last-minute junk fixes to the airport! Most of that frustration centered on Continental's ridiculous fees to carry our luggage for only two of our twenty-two hours in the air. The rest of my concern was over Emirate's restrictive luggage policy . . . economy class passengers were only allowed ONE piece of carry-on baggage with dimensions less than 22" X 15" X 8" and weighing less than 15 pounds. This presented a dilemma . . . my rolling bag weighs 7 lbs. with nothing in it, so how would I ever fit in a change of clothes (never cross the international date line without one), my laptop, cosmetics, jewelry, neck pillow, blanket, medicines, snacks, documents and 33 hours worth of entertainment? After changing to a (non-matching) bag weighing only 4.5 lbs empty, I dealt with it . . . except with my camera, Ipod and electronic Yahtzee game it weighed 16 lbs. I decided to live dangerously--if they dared to say anything I would stuff my neck pillow under my shirt and wear my blanket as a hijab. When we got to Houston, we were ecstatic to learn that our $90 baggage fee enabled Continental lackeys to transfer our bags over to Emirates and check them all the way to Kolkata; however, we had a few tense moments when the terminal workers began walking through the passenger waiting area, scanning and lifting up people's carry-ons. I rehearsed my speech about why I wouldn't pay USD175 for the extra pound
. . . until I was jarred by the hubbub created by a European lady who was told she had to check her THREE oversized carry-ons and take only the essentials in a complimentary, grocery-sized Emirates bag. She sniffed defiantly, "It's impossible . . . I need EVERYTHING." After some back and forth, the staff relented. Note to self: Stop being such a rule-follower. By the time we boarded our 14 hour, 40 minute international flight ("Economy passengers remain comfortably seated"), I realized that even if I could have fit my carry-on bag fully under the seat in front of me, I would never be able to get it out or open it up without much ado. Resigned, I put it in the overhead bin and settled in with my neck pillow, blanket and a grocery-sized bag of essentials.
Seatmates. It felt so comfortable to travel halfway around the world with a good friend, and LM and I carefully chose our seats for the longest leg of travel. Not the bulkhead rows (reserved for babies and bassinets). Not the center rows (higher probability for unpleasant company). We chose aisle and center seats on a row for three and hoped for the best. The friendliest, most interesting Afghani man had the window seat and he entertained us for hours with stories about his home country, working as an environmental consultant for the World Bank, and family life in my native Houston. The time couldn't have passed more pleasantly, especially since most of my reading material was stowed overhead. In such tight quarters, it was a gift to share space with someone who expanded our universe and lightened the mood. By the time we parted in Dubai, we were old chums, though we never exchanged names or saw each other again.
18 January 2010 Sanity. It's not easy to maintain good manners on a 15-hour flight. My only other overseas flight was between L.A. and Thailand, so I had already faced the mental anguish of calculating how on earth a plane can stay in the air for so long, and what on earth I would do if we had to make an emergency landing in the ocean. This freed me up to concentrate on how on earth to pass so much time upright and tightly confined. 1) Best travel purchase: Memory foam neck pillow from the Relax the Back store. 2) Best emotional move: my own blanket from Sari Bari. 3) Best airline booking: Emirates' entertainment and food service. Every seat had it's own ICE system (Information Communication Entertainment), with a personal touchscreen and remote/game pad/internet phone. Each passenger could track the flight plan (cockpit view, under-plane view, GPS view); play unlimited video games or keep up on news in multiple languages; pause and play all kinds of movies, symphonies, television or music playlists in dozens of genres and languages. Who needed electronic Yahtzee? The food was just as plentiful, though not mainstream fare. I was happy to choose curry lamb for dinner, but it was a little disconcerting when breakfast and lunch menus all looked the same. 4) Best mid-air surprise: plentiful fresh fruit and juices, some fermented.
19 January 2010 Immigration. Somewhat bedraggled when we arrived in Kolkata, we still managed to follow our instructions about proceeding through immigration and customs without standing out any more than necessary . . . and all of our bags arrived safely . . . thank you for praying! Our four giant electric blue suitcases didn't help us keep a very low profile, but both of us managed to get our papers processed without being searched. The first clue that we were in Kolkata was the cat in the lobby and the sea of faces staring at us as if we were aliens. Brent was no where to be seen until we got a little more oriented and picked out his smiling white face behind a barricade outside the terminal for un-ticketed visitors. We had almost forgotten the recent high alert . . . pretty sure that Kolkata is low on the terrorist hit list, still we wondered how we could have safely navigated our bodies and luggage into a "legitimate" taxi without Brent's cultural and language skills. It took a big chain to hold the taxi's trunk closed, but we stuffed ourselves in and off we bumped across the city, wide-eyed and full of anticipation!
. . . until I was jarred by the hubbub created by a European lady who was told she had to check her THREE oversized carry-ons and take only the essentials in a complimentary, grocery-sized Emirates bag. She sniffed defiantly, "It's impossible . . . I need EVERYTHING." After some back and forth, the staff relented. Note to self: Stop being such a rule-follower. By the time we boarded our 14 hour, 40 minute international flight ("Economy passengers remain comfortably seated"), I realized that even if I could have fit my carry-on bag fully under the seat in front of me, I would never be able to get it out or open it up without much ado. Resigned, I put it in the overhead bin and settled in with my neck pillow, blanket and a grocery-sized bag of essentials.
Seatmates. It felt so comfortable to travel halfway around the world with a good friend, and LM and I carefully chose our seats for the longest leg of travel. Not the bulkhead rows (reserved for babies and bassinets). Not the center rows (higher probability for unpleasant company). We chose aisle and center seats on a row for three and hoped for the best. The friendliest, most interesting Afghani man had the window seat and he entertained us for hours with stories about his home country, working as an environmental consultant for the World Bank, and family life in my native Houston. The time couldn't have passed more pleasantly, especially since most of my reading material was stowed overhead. In such tight quarters, it was a gift to share space with someone who expanded our universe and lightened the mood. By the time we parted in Dubai, we were old chums, though we never exchanged names or saw each other again.
18 January 2010 Sanity. It's not easy to maintain good manners on a 15-hour flight. My only other overseas flight was between L.A. and Thailand, so I had already faced the mental anguish of calculating how on earth a plane can stay in the air for so long, and what on earth I would do if we had to make an emergency landing in the ocean. This freed me up to concentrate on how on earth to pass so much time upright and tightly confined. 1) Best travel purchase: Memory foam neck pillow from the Relax the Back store. 2) Best emotional move: my own blanket from Sari Bari. 3) Best airline booking: Emirates' entertainment and food service. Every seat had it's own ICE system (Information Communication Entertainment), with a personal touchscreen and remote/game pad/internet phone. Each passenger could track the flight plan (cockpit view, under-plane view, GPS view); play unlimited video games or keep up on news in multiple languages; pause and play all kinds of movies, symphonies, television or music playlists in dozens of genres and languages. Who needed electronic Yahtzee? The food was just as plentiful, though not mainstream fare. I was happy to choose curry lamb for dinner, but it was a little disconcerting when breakfast and lunch menus all looked the same. 4) Best mid-air surprise: plentiful fresh fruit and juices, some fermented.
19 January 2010 UAE Layover. We had heard that the Emirates terminal in Dubai would provide everything we needed for an 8-hour layover, and we weren't disappointed, especially in the people-watching department. Observing people of every shade of brown made our skin seem very foreign and uninteresting. Second to this was the parade of turbans, hijabs, and beautiful variations of fashion moving in and out of the upscale, quite western duty-free shops in this international mall. McDonalds, Burger King, Starbucks, Baskin-Robbins, Haagen Daas, etc. were mixed in with shops selling cosmetics, perfume, electronics, liquor, expensive clothing, and stereotypical souveneirs like chocolate camels, hookah pipes, and travel-sized prayer mats. Other surprises were gender-specific prayer rooms, a free internet kiosk, and western toilets supervised by mostly SE Asian workers. It was hard to believe that we were able to eat a McChicken sandwich with Starbucks coffee and Gmail chat with friends and family while changing our Facebook status--the only weird part was typing on an Arabic keyboard that rendered Elaine as "Elsie". A change of clothes, a washed face and aromatic lotion made the red lounging chairs almost delicious for resting in a more sleep-like position. We didn't care that we were the only women in the dimmed section near the Bahrain boarding gate. LM synced up her dual country travel watch then we let our bodies tell us when to sleep or eat. From time to time I would peer out from under my Sari Bari to calculate the time until our last 5-hour jaunt to the City of Joy.
19 January 2010 Immigration. Somewhat bedraggled when we arrived in Kolkata, we still managed to follow our instructions about proceeding through immigration and customs without standing out any more than necessary . . . and all of our bags arrived safely . . . thank you for praying! Our four giant electric blue suitcases didn't help us keep a very low profile, but both of us managed to get our papers processed without being searched. The first clue that we were in Kolkata was the cat in the lobby and the sea of faces staring at us as if we were aliens. Brent was no where to be seen until we got a little more oriented and picked out his smiling white face behind a barricade outside the terminal for un-ticketed visitors. We had almost forgotten the recent high alert . . . pretty sure that Kolkata is low on the terrorist hit list, still we wondered how we could have safely navigated our bodies and luggage into a "legitimate" taxi without Brent's cultural and language skills. It took a big chain to hold the taxi's trunk closed, but we stuffed ourselves in and off we bumped across the city, wide-eyed and full of anticipation!
2 comments:
More, please (as we try to get my niece to say)! I am totally enjoying reading your journal and have had more than a couple smiles and giggles. Can't wait for the next post! :-)
Love it! Can't wait for the next installment!
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