I was impressed to see the Toyota Corolla waiting to pick me up outside the apartment. It was 12:00 AM in the morning, and for a change, I was starting so late to the airport. The chauffer was fast. By 12:40 I was at the airport. And then, all the hell broke loose.
The check-in baggage weighed 27 kg. On cue, they weighed by cabin baggage and it weighed 13 kg. Out went 2 kg of rice and some ready-to-eat stuff. I would need to depend on Chinese food. The weight of check-in baggage brought down to 23 kg. Tackling the cabin baggage was easy. I took out the 5 kg backpack (retrospectively, a bad idea to carry it along – a teched bag would have been better).
“This only contains the laptop. Can I carry it separately?” I asked
“Yes sir, you can” said the lady at the counter.
“So what’s the big deal if I just turn the corner and keep the backpack inside the cabin baggage?”
She didn’t have a convincing answer. After immigration check, I did just that – after more than an hour. Immigration check was hell. All the counters were open. But the personnel were so slow that a huge snaking queue had formed, and it was now approaching the other end of the terminal. It also meant that we had to dodge smartasses who tried to claim that they were the only people flying on the 3:00 AM flight to Hong Kong. To compound my woes, the security check was held up by the clever guards who claimed to have found an invisible pair of scissors in the bags of a gentleman. It was 2:30 AM when I reached the gate.
I never knew when the flight took off. I was fast asleep. Thankfully, there were no cry babies. Half an hour before landing, I was woken up for breakfast consisting of something disguised as upma and sambar. We descended into Hong Kong half hour late. Thankfully, the transfer gate was nearby. There were hardly 50 people on the flight to Shanghai. The vegetable pulao, bhindi and dal was more indian that the upma and sambar.
At 3:00 PM, we alighted at Shanghai. The ghost of immigration came to haunt me again. After an hour of waiting in the queue, I exited into a parking lot that was miles high. All the taxis had the VW symbol in front. Everything else was in Chinese. It was 4:00 PM and the sun was already setting. Soon, we were cruising from one elevated road to another. One could barely see the tops of the apartments. Add to that, it was foggy. A Maglev train passed us at some impossible speed.
But no sooner we crossed the Lupu Bridge into downtown, than the traffic came to a standstill. The last few kilometers, we crawled. Drivers are the same as in India. It’s a nightmare to change lanes. Nobody gives way.
And, there are mosquitos here…there was one in the car.
The check-in baggage weighed 27 kg. On cue, they weighed by cabin baggage and it weighed 13 kg. Out went 2 kg of rice and some ready-to-eat stuff. I would need to depend on Chinese food. The weight of check-in baggage brought down to 23 kg. Tackling the cabin baggage was easy. I took out the 5 kg backpack (retrospectively, a bad idea to carry it along – a teched bag would have been better).
“This only contains the laptop. Can I carry it separately?” I asked
“Yes sir, you can” said the lady at the counter.
“So what’s the big deal if I just turn the corner and keep the backpack inside the cabin baggage?”
She didn’t have a convincing answer. After immigration check, I did just that – after more than an hour. Immigration check was hell. All the counters were open. But the personnel were so slow that a huge snaking queue had formed, and it was now approaching the other end of the terminal. It also meant that we had to dodge smartasses who tried to claim that they were the only people flying on the 3:00 AM flight to Hong Kong. To compound my woes, the security check was held up by the clever guards who claimed to have found an invisible pair of scissors in the bags of a gentleman. It was 2:30 AM when I reached the gate.
I never knew when the flight took off. I was fast asleep. Thankfully, there were no cry babies. Half an hour before landing, I was woken up for breakfast consisting of something disguised as upma and sambar. We descended into Hong Kong half hour late. Thankfully, the transfer gate was nearby. There were hardly 50 people on the flight to Shanghai. The vegetable pulao, bhindi and dal was more indian that the upma and sambar.
At 3:00 PM, we alighted at Shanghai. The ghost of immigration came to haunt me again. After an hour of waiting in the queue, I exited into a parking lot that was miles high. All the taxis had the VW symbol in front. Everything else was in Chinese. It was 4:00 PM and the sun was already setting. Soon, we were cruising from one elevated road to another. One could barely see the tops of the apartments. Add to that, it was foggy. A Maglev train passed us at some impossible speed.
But no sooner we crossed the Lupu Bridge into downtown, than the traffic came to a standstill. The last few kilometers, we crawled. Drivers are the same as in India. It’s a nightmare to change lanes. Nobody gives way.
And, there are mosquitos here…there was one in the car.
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