WEATHER: Cold in Kathmandu 5C-Hot in Singapore and 28C at midnight……
HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: I’m on my way home
BUMMER OF THE DAY: Slugged for excess
baggage
WORD OF THE DAY: I’M COMING HOME
DISTANCE TRAVELLED: 3554km
I’M COMING HOME-I’M COMING HOME-TELL THE
WORLD I’M COMING HOME.
I start my journey home today-really it
is for the second time. I never thought
in my wildest dreams that I would have extended my World Odyssey after my first
return, but things happen and plans change that are out of your control and you
need to adjust, re-plan and then continue forward. I would not wish to CHANGE a thing that has
happened the last 4 months- and the cliché saying of all things happen for a
reason is so true. I would not have
travelled to Sri Lanka, met my awesome group, been introduced to Buddhism,
attended a friend’s wedding in Phuket, visited the Philippines and seen the
tarsier and the beautiful island of Boracay and my last stop the amazing and
scenic country of Nepal. Let’s not
forget the new tattoo I got that means a lot more than just some ink on my arm
and the incredible people that I have met along the way. How can you out a price on all of that
(besides the bank balance) but it has come at a cost to some extent-my future was
thrown into haywire and a relationship that I thought would last till the end
of time-didn’t. These things happen and to
use a quote I love
“Remember that sometimes not getting what
you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.”
So with all that said and the additional 4
months of unexpected travel was ‘life’ changing, if it could even more than my
previous 15 months and I was coming home for the last time, for a while anyway
as I am unsure on when I will return for a holiday. That has a real finality to that statement
and that is what makes me feel’s sad.
My flight wasn’t until midday today, so
I had the morning to get some breakfast and finalize my packing. I was up at 6.30am and I was going to be on
the go till midnight tonight when I arrived into Singapore and then had an
additional 19 hours to kill before my flight back to Australia tomorrow
night. I have booked the Crown Plaza
Singapore Airport for the stop, I figured by the time I arrived, collected my
bags, paid for 2 nights and a late checkout it wasn’t worth the extra travel
into the city and time, so I was happy with the plan to clear customs, grab my
bags, change terminals and be at my hotel, especially after 10 hours of
travel. I was looking at staying at the
Marina Sands in Singapore, you know the new hotel that is made up of 3 buildings
and has a pool connecting them all together but at 500AUD for the night and I
would need 2.5 nights, it was a price I wasn’t willing to pay-yes, I do have
some limits-…….sometimes! My last
breakfast was at the Florid Hotel and even though they have been pretty quick
each morning so far, I headed down at 7.30am to have some ‘snafu’ time should
they be busy. They were a little busier
than previous trips, but I was still fed and watered by 8.30am and with a BIG
thank-you and a larger than normal tip I made my way back to the hotel to
collect my bags. There were cabs out the
front, so I checked with one what the price was, he quoted the going rate of
400 pesos, so I told him I would be back in 10 minutes, grabbed by bevy of bags
and packed the small metro taxi with all my crap and we were on our way to the
airport.
As it was day 3 of Diwali, there was
hardly any traffic on the roads as it is a holiday, so I made it to the airport
with plenty of time to spare. When we
arrived there was a trolley guy there immediately as I opened my door, but my
taxi man had gone to get me a trolley anyway.
I felt bad I didn’t take the guy’s trolley, and if I did I would have
felt bad that I didn’t give him anything, even though there are signs all
around telling tourists that you don’t need to pay for trolleys. I was tipping my taxi driver anyway, so I let
him grab my trolley-I certainly needed it that is for sure. To enter the building you need to show your
passport and your ticket and the lineup took around 10 minutes to get in and
then there was another security check point where your bags were scanned and
you were given the pat down to gain the final access to one of the most
antiquated airports for a capital city in the world. It is like stepping back to the 60’s and
considering the amount of traffic that passes through here each year it is
surprising the age of the airport. I
found my check-in counters and I had arrived exactly 3 hours prior to my flight
and there were about 80 people in front of me already. Talk about everyone being early, I think it
may have something to do with the traffic being so unpredictable that everyone
just starts out earlier than needed to make sure there are no hold ups on the
way. Maybe the Nepalese are a ‘snafu’
kind of people when it comes to travelling?
Either way, the counters didn’t open for another 15 minutes, so I stuck
in my headphones and played solitaire for the time. There was an older lady in front of me who
had 2 small backpacks, one looked like her daily one and the other was a
walking pack, and when the line started to moved she had great difficulty in
bending over to reach her bags, looked to be in a lot of pain and trouble
walking. She had on her North Face pants
and matching jacket and her walking boots, so my guess is she was hiking and
something happened to her. I helped he
move her bags twice, as she didn’t even have a trolley (I wonder how she got to
the airport for no-one to be with her or at least given her a trolley) and then
the third time, she said she could do it and I didn’t help again. You wouldn’t believe when she finally made it
to the counter to check-in she was at the wrong one. She was flying Thai Airways and she was
standing in the Malaysia Airlines queue.
I felt so bad for her, her English didn’t seem the greatest, and as I
was trying to listen I think she was slurring her words, she was in bad
shape. I offered my trolley but one of
the staff behind the counter realized how bad she was and helped her with her
bags and walked her to where she should be.
So it was my turn to check in and get
the monster on the scales and I was pretty close with the weight, it was 26.3kg. The check-in girl looked twice and I knew
that I may be in with a problem. She
told me I was 6kg over, and I agreed with her and then as we looked at each
other I asked how much would it cost me?
Oh yes I well and truly knew [I was in to pay when she then called over
a gentleman supervisor, they chit chatted in Nepalese and then told me it would
be 6636rupees. It always sounds a lot in
a foreign currency and I am not that great at my 84 times tables, so when I
worked out that was 79USD I then had to check if that was per kilo or total for
the 6 of them. !!!! I was relieved when
they said that it was a total amount and without a fuss I pulled out my credit
card. I did ask for a break and could
they give me a little leeway and the supervisor was very generous and gave me a
1kg extra allowance. Gen-ner-ous. Well
as mentioned the airport is so old, they don’t have a credit card facility, not
even the old clack clack style ones, so now we had another problem. They told me I could use the ATM down the
other end of the building and then come back, but I did put my foot down and
said how much was it in US dollars, they told me 79, and I opened my purse and
pulled out 40USD and said this is all I have.
So they chit chatted again, the supervisor went away, and to speed
things up I pulled out another 20USD telling them that was the last of it and
they accepted it. So my free kilo turned
into 2 free kg’s and I paid for 4. I
just hoped that they didn’t see the other 100USD I had sitting in my purse. I wasn’t going to push the point because if
they asked to weigh my hand luggage I would be in a world of hurt with my small
backpack weighing at least 10kg, my handbag that contained my laptop and IPad,
which would have to be at least 6kg and then the freckle rug and a Buddha head
in the shoulder bag that also would have been around 6kg. Yeah-60
bucks well spent and after updating my status about the event a few people came
back saying that it is pretty good when you think about all the other flights
where I didn’t get pulled up. Good point. So after getting a receipt for the payment and
my boarding pass I hightailed it out of there before they saw what else I was
carrying. They were happy and I was
happy. So on my 84th flight
and my second last flight of my Odyssey I was busted for excess baggage, only the
second time joining the time I was charged 45GBP for my flight from Dublin to
London. Not a bad strike rate I suppose,
but also a credit to myself for my packing and travelling with
stuff-right.
There was one more passport and boarding
pass check on our way up the escalators, customs and immigration was next. I was the only one in line and I was waved
over to an officer who was talking on his mobile as he stamped me out of the
country. They also had to stamp my
boarding pass and as I walked away I realized I had given him my KL to
Singapore boarding pass and not the Kathmandu to KL one. So he technically stamped the wrong one. Not thinking it was a big deal- I headed to
the lounge area. Here were the duty free
shops, all 3 of them and 2 confectionary shops.
I had 245rupees burning a hole in my pocket (equivalent to 2.91AUD) and
I got some lollies to suck on and I was 5rupees short for a Fanta and the
cashier guy let me off. How nice…… see things do come back around-even if it is
the equivalent of 5c. I sat down to
consume my purchases as there was another security screen that had to be passed
and I played some more solitaire and listened to some more tunes for another 45
minutes, before thinking I better get moving through and finally to the
departure gate. So there was a female line
and a male line and once through the pat down and ready to collect my bags, the
gentleman told me to take out my laptops, but I had and they were coming out of
the machine, he then went back to his job and the nasty security lady asked for
my boarding pass as she stamped the airline bag tags that were given to us at
check in. Well there seemed to be a
massive issue that the boarding pass wasn’t stamped and she called the guy back
over-he told her something in Nepali and then went back to his job again. She then just started stamping and checking
other ladies as they came through. Um…..
Hello-so I pulled out the other boarding pass to show that I did have a stamp
and still nothing, so I gathered my bags and figured I would just walk off,
when the guy came back and said that I had to go back to customs and get the
right boarding pass stamped. WHAT. So I told them was leaving all my bags with them and I
walked against the flow of traffic to security, waved through, pushed in front
of the queue that now had over 100 people in it and got ‘my’ guy to stamp the
right pass. Hmmmm he shouldn’t have been
on the phone in the first place, but he did say sorry. So I then made my way back to the female
security line that now also had 10 women in front of me, got the pat down
again, nasty security lady and finally I was given the wave through. 10m away was another security check, to make
sure you had the damn stamp on the boarding pass and THEN you were finally
through to the departure gates. Talk
about a security rigmarole but I made it through!
The departure gates were busy, they were
numbered but there were no boards telling you where your flight was leaving
from. There was a security guy at a
table in between all the gates, so I asked where the Malaysia flights leave
from and I was told gate 3. So I entered
the room, found a seat and then just watched the TV for the departing flight
for that departure gate. 2 groups of
people left on mass and I stalked their boarding passes as they all left and
none of them were Malaysian passengers, but I figured it was time to take the
tunes out and start to listen to announcements which was just as well as there
was one made 15 minutes later of the gate change to my flight and we were all
hoarded into a smaller room where there weren’t enough seats for all of us, so
the boarding queue was automatically formed and after a further 20 minutes,
security pushed past us and the boarding process began. It was a bus boarding, and as we got closer
to the exit, there were 2 lines, one for men and one for women and again we
were patted down by security to be allowed to leave the building. The bus was waiting and as my timing would
have I was one of the last passengers on before the doors closed and we were
driven the 300m to our plane. Last on is
great as it means you are first off. As
it was a tarmac board, we could board at the front and the rear. Being in seat 24 I was guessing I would be
closer to the rear of the plane, so without getting it checked I took the
chance and it paid off. There were 30
rows. I had successfully bypassed the
drama of boarding a plane. As we taxied
out, you could see other flights also preparing to leave. It was busy with all the planes lined
up-there were 6 other flights, no wonder it was busy at the terminal. I was sitting on the left of the plane and
without even realizing it I was to get another magnificent view of the Himalaya’s
one last time and what a wonderful way to end my time in Nepal. It was a beautiful day, the skies were clear
and I got some magnificent photos, even if they were taken from my little camera. It was a busy flight as well with not a spare
seat on the flight. We were sitting on a
737-800 with a configuration 3x3 and all buckled in for the 4hour and 25 minute
flight. Well you can guess what was for
lunch-curry. Curry chicken or curry
beef-big range and I actually watched some TV on this flight with 4 episodes of
Modern Family, man I love that show. I
have to get my ‘plane’ laugh on as my ‘normal’ laugh is a little scary for a
confined space such as an airplane, but it makes me laugh so much. It is probably one of the few shows I could
watch again and again.
I love window seats, as you get to see
some amazing cloud formations, sun reflections, sunsets, sunrises and the shades
of colors ranging from the black, blues, reds, oranges and yellows. Today was no different and probably one of
the most memorable of my ‘window’ viewing experience starting with the view of
the Himalaya’s and even though I was on the wrong side for the sunset, my side
of the plane got a magic display of the sun’s rays bouncing off the clouds as
they turned into night time and it looked like someone was shining a torch
through the clouds-it is so hard to explain just how it looked, but it was
amazing and I just couldn’t look away as we were moving so fast, there was
always a different view. It was dark when we arrived into Kuala
Lumpur at 7.30pm. My next flight wasn’t until
10.45pm, so I wasn’t in any rush to get off the flight, so I let everyone off
and ended up being the last person off the flight. I worked out where I was and where I had to
get to and once that was established I had to catch the free airtrain to
terminal D. It is a quick 8 minute ride
and once we got there; there were a lot more restaurants, duty free shops and
things to do. I saw a Burger King and
with the chicken drummets in mind and the thought that of the short 45 minute
flight I had coming up to Singapore and the midnight arrival, I thought I would
have dinner here. Unfortunately they didn’t
have the drumettes, so with a burger and fries later I was on my way to find my
new gate for my last flight of the day.
I was buggered.
Our gate was closed when I got there,
but was due to open at 9.30pm. I took a
seat further down from the entrance and played solitaire on my IPad, keeping an
eye on the queue that was forming outside the gate waiting for it to open. At 10pm, the line was increasing and I thought
I better go and check what was happening and when I went down there, the queue
was for the flight next door and all my passengers were inside getting ready
for the boarding call. A classic sign
that you not only need to keep an eye on your fellow travelers, but make sure
you are following the right ones. The
flight next door was off to Bahrain-yeah that’s not Singapore. So I was able to bypass all the waiting
people, for the other flight, rescanned and into the departure lounge where I
only had to wait 10 minutes and then the flight was called and my seat row was
the first one to board! You ripper-I
love getting on first and being able to store all my stuff in the overhead
first and not have it taken up by people like me travelling with 3 pieces of
hand luggage-well I think I deserve it, along with every other single person
carrying more than they should.
We left on time at 10.45pm for the short
flight to Singapore. There is just
enough time for the hostees to serve a drink and a packet of peanuts before
they come back through the cabin to collect all the rubbish and then prep the
aircraft for landing. This flight wasn’t
as busy and I had the 2 seats next to me free.
It’s always the way with the short haul flights. We were on a 737-800 aircraft again and I was
in the same row I had from Kathmandu, just on the opposite side of the aircraft
and the configuration was 3x3. I had
Googled where the Crown Plaza Airport Hotel was located, so I just needed to
know what terminal we were flying into when we landed and I would know exactly
where I was. We arrived into Singapore
at 11.50pm, and then made my way to customs.
I have a little routine now when I come into Singapore and it is
generally 2 things. I check my Facebook
and email on one of the free computers throughout the terminals and with a bank
of computers right near the escalators to go down to customs it is quick and
easy and then I make my way down to collect my bag. The other is getting chicken drumettes from
Burger King which I didn’t think would be possible tonight with the time and
being check-in side but with the time now after midnight I think I was going to
be okay with that.
There weren’t too many people at customs
and I only had to wait 10 minutes to get processed, which was fine as I know
the airtrain runs till 2am and I also didn’t have far to travel now that I had
my bag in hand. The trolleys are free in
Singapore, so after hefting the monster onto the trolley and getting waved
through screening I was out and clear in Singapore. By this time I was super happy I had made the
decision to stay at the airport and as I started to make my way to the train I
could see a Burger King and it was OPEN!!
Well I couldn’t pass up the drumettes, so I got a 12 pack (no fries)
waited for them to get cooked and then took them with me to eat in my room once
I arrived. The Crown Plaza is linked by
an internal walkway, passing 2 bars and a restaurant. I had to catch the lift to the ground floor
and then check-in to my room. Once the formalities
were done and the check-in chick managed to upgrade me to the breakfast and
internet package I was told that I couldn’t take the airport trolley with me to
the room. I guess that makes sense. So the bell boy was called and I wish I had a
dollar for every face that has looked at the monster and had to lift the sucker. I always tip anyone that has anything to do
with moving my bag and tonight was no different, but he did have a hotel trolley,
so it wasn’t like he had to carry it the whole way. The hotel is actually quite nice and has a
resort feel about it rather than a hotel feel.
The rooms had small entrances over bridges and I knew I was going to enjoy
my 19 hours I had here.
The room was also amazing with a small
sitting room, the king size bed, and a massive bathroom with a glass wall covered
in frangipani’s looking out back into the sitting room. The first thing I did was have a shower. It actually had a wall around it, hot water
and a steady flow of water for the 30 minutes I was in there. MAGIC.
I then switched on the TV, booted
up the computer, grabbed a Sprite from the fridge and then sat down to consume
the 12 chicken drumettes I had bought from Burger King nearly an hour before
and as disgusting as it sounds, they were delicious. I decided to go to bed at 2.30am, as I had
now paid for breakfast I had to make sure I would make it and as I set my alarm
for 9am I was even too tired to think that I was ½ way home and I would be on
my last plane tomorrow night to BRISBANE!!!!!
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