(continued from "Holiday! Celebrate!")
Or so it seemed to my SO* and me. But not before an eventful (?) flight. Drumroll please.
My vacation begins as soon as I step out of the airport lounge and into the aircraft. For that very reason, I fought hard and long against SO to convince him to pay a little more in order to fly by Thailand's national airline. I secretly also wanted to collect frequent flyer miles on the Star Alliance network! I looked around the familiar interior of the aircraft and wondered in amazement how much at home I felt even though I absolutely hate flights. As I mentally geared myself for take-off (I hyperventilate until the aircraft reaches its crusing height and the seatbelt sign is switched off) and the plane began to taxi, the GPS map on the cabin TV screen was replaced by a live camera strategically placed on the window of the cockpit. Was this some sort of a practical joke? Why would I want to see what the pilots are seeing as we take off? But it was an option between looking outside the window or at the screen and the view was pretty fascinating. It was a matter of a couple of seconds before I chose to see the runway melt into the nightsky instead of strain my neck to see New Delhi at night (SO was at the window-seat).
Unfortunately, my post-ascent composure was shortlived. Flying over Calcutta has never been pleasant, but what lay ahead this time was the after-effect of Cyclone Nargis. Not much of a story to tell, other than the constant switching on-and-off of the seatbelt sign by the captain and the relentless turbulence that continued until we reached Bangkok. However, for me this was unbearable and I was so terrified that I neither managed to catch some sleep, nor did I watch the in-flight movie. What resulted was grogginess, bleary eyes and a heavy head. I thanked my lucky stars for the good food on the flight. I'm serious. The salad was bearable, but the Masaman Chicken Curry with Rice gave SO a flavour of what lay ahead for the coming week in terms of food. Of course, the real thing was going to knock his socks off!
4 hours later and a very sulky me emerged from the aircraft at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi airport. SO had slept for most of the flight, waking up in between for a few minutes to hold my hand during turbulence. All sulking was lost at the familiar site of the sprawling airport, its moving walkways and the heavenly duty-free shops. I thanked my stars that we had made the decision of getting a visa from Delhi itself. There was no way of managing visa-on-arrival, immigration, baggage collection (you cannot book baggage through if you don't have a visa on check-in) and check-in for the flight to Krabi in the mere 2 hours between flights. So we strolled around the airport while I mentally ticked off things on my shopping list and urged SO to remember prices for me to compare later.
The flight to Krabi was uneventful and I was thrilled about it, mostly because I could then spend my time fretting about how we were going to get to the hotel from the airport. I was being damn stingy, considering it was the 1st time I was funding my holiday myself. SO, of course, slept. Until we landed at Krabi airport. All exhaustion had disappeared and SO, surprisingly, wasn't sleepy anymore!
*SO = Significant Other
Or so it seemed to my SO* and me. But not before an eventful (?) flight. Drumroll please.
My vacation begins as soon as I step out of the airport lounge and into the aircraft. For that very reason, I fought hard and long against SO to convince him to pay a little more in order to fly by Thailand's national airline. I secretly also wanted to collect frequent flyer miles on the Star Alliance network! I looked around the familiar interior of the aircraft and wondered in amazement how much at home I felt even though I absolutely hate flights. As I mentally geared myself for take-off (I hyperventilate until the aircraft reaches its crusing height and the seatbelt sign is switched off) and the plane began to taxi, the GPS map on the cabin TV screen was replaced by a live camera strategically placed on the window of the cockpit. Was this some sort of a practical joke? Why would I want to see what the pilots are seeing as we take off? But it was an option between looking outside the window or at the screen and the view was pretty fascinating. It was a matter of a couple of seconds before I chose to see the runway melt into the nightsky instead of strain my neck to see New Delhi at night (SO was at the window-seat).
Unfortunately, my post-ascent composure was shortlived. Flying over Calcutta has never been pleasant, but what lay ahead this time was the after-effect of Cyclone Nargis. Not much of a story to tell, other than the constant switching on-and-off of the seatbelt sign by the captain and the relentless turbulence that continued until we reached Bangkok. However, for me this was unbearable and I was so terrified that I neither managed to catch some sleep, nor did I watch the in-flight movie. What resulted was grogginess, bleary eyes and a heavy head. I thanked my lucky stars for the good food on the flight. I'm serious. The salad was bearable, but the Masaman Chicken Curry with Rice gave SO a flavour of what lay ahead for the coming week in terms of food. Of course, the real thing was going to knock his socks off!
4 hours later and a very sulky me emerged from the aircraft at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi airport. SO had slept for most of the flight, waking up in between for a few minutes to hold my hand during turbulence. All sulking was lost at the familiar site of the sprawling airport, its moving walkways and the heavenly duty-free shops. I thanked my stars that we had made the decision of getting a visa from Delhi itself. There was no way of managing visa-on-arrival, immigration, baggage collection (you cannot book baggage through if you don't have a visa on check-in) and check-in for the flight to Krabi in the mere 2 hours between flights. So we strolled around the airport while I mentally ticked off things on my shopping list and urged SO to remember prices for me to compare later.
The flight to Krabi was uneventful and I was thrilled about it, mostly because I could then spend my time fretting about how we were going to get to the hotel from the airport. I was being damn stingy, considering it was the 1st time I was funding my holiday myself. SO, of course, slept. Until we landed at Krabi airport. All exhaustion had disappeared and SO, surprisingly, wasn't sleepy anymore!
*SO = Significant Other
