To South India

A Package to India, January 1999

We buy a package tour to Kerala, with the intention of using the accommodation on the first and last night only, and in-between travelling around for a couple of weeks with our rucksacks on our back.

Gatwick and the practised package tourist.

Our hol started in Garfunkels at Gatwick. Fortunately not a portent of the food to come, but a good thing to do because more sustaining than the food on the aeroplane.

We had been given a check-in time of 8.55pm earliest. We got to the desk at 9.15 and everyone had gone – been through already. Something we did not know, but became familiar with on this trip: that given an appointment the package tourist will arrive exceedingly early for it and form a queue. We, who have been to places here and there mainly for work, were unfamiliar with this convention.

But we were not concerned because we had paid an extra ten pounds each for pre-booked seats. These, we were informed when we got to the desk, were not arranged. We rather got the impression that, by turning up so much later than the rest of humankind, we had thrown the system somewhat. Normally when people pay their ten pounds they get to the check-in desk early enough that they can be told their seats had been booked, when they hadn’t at all, but the travel company collects its ten pounds per person. We demanded our money back (after we got back) and got it.

So we could not sit together, we had to sit on opposite sides of the aisle.

What the complete package tourist does on the aeroplane.

Hilary had ordered the vegetarian option on the aeroplane, and that message had not got through either, though she managed to get a veggie meal from the steward – not a particularly wise move as it was barely edible, whereas my meat dish by contrast was salty and synthetic – turkey possibly though it could have been tofu.

The first thing we noticed about our fellow travellers was the amount of booze they ordered. Drinks were neither free nor especially cheap, but we, who as a general rule do not drink alcohol on aeroplanes, appeared to be the only ones not ordering gin and tonic, Bacardi and coke, or a bottle of sparkling ‘champagne’. And not just ordering one gin and tonic or whatever, three or four at a time.

Our behaviour was not only notable by its difference, it was also looked upon with absolute disdain by the stewardess, who clearly thought we were somewhere we shouldn’t have been, we imagine because she gets a commission on sales.

What the complete package tourist does on the aeroplane – 2.

The next thing we noticed about the people on the plane was how excited they were. There we were on this cramped, full 757, at 10.30 at night, needing essentially to get our eyes closed as we’s come a long journey already straight from work, and all these people were drinking G&Ts and bottles of wine, tucking in to their dinner, and being purposefully jolly. They had plastic bags full of duty-free booze (though expressly forbidden to open these on the aeroplane, don’t want to damage sales after all) ready for more G&Ts on the balcony of the hotel throughout their stay, and no one seemed to want to sleep at all.

Just a little rest from the hubbub.

Snoozing was not easy, not least because the in-flight video showed a film of Only Fools and Horses that it appeared most if not all of our fellow travellers had seen many times before, so they know exactly where to laugh and guffaw boozily and loudly.

Eventually we did get an hour or so’s sleep, before being woken for breakfast as the plane approach Bahrain, at what for us was about 4am.

The story continues with Hours of Fun in Bahrain Airport.

Hours of Fun in Bahrain Airport

An Extended Stopover in Bahrain – January 1999

This follows on from To South India; our aeroplane stopped off in Bahrain airport to refuel and for the package tourists to buy more booze, and upon taking off again developed a fault and had to turn and re-land. Our trip was delayed by a day in Bahrain, but this turned out to have some intriguing moments.

The cabin crew had announced that we would be stopping at Bahrain, and we then saw a video showing us all the delightful things we could buy in the transit lounge there: essentially yet more booze.

We all therefore dutifully got off at Bahrain, dutifully for the duty-free, but we personally did not buy anything, unlike others of our fellow travellers whom we saw carrying yet more plastic bags containing bottles in boxes.

We sat and watched the great diversity of people in the airport lounge: men in jellabiyas; splendid-looking Arab men with white tunics and head-dresses; women dressed all in black; men with red and white tea-towels on their heads; plus Indians in saris and people in various forms of Western dress from suits to T-shirts.

We didn’t buy any duty-free and were soon called back to the aeroplane for the four-and-a-half hour flight to Trivandrum.

The plane had reached cruising height and people were being served yet another gin and tonic, when we seemed to hit some serious turbulence and the captain told the crew to stow the trolleys.

A few minutes passed and then the captain announced that he had had to drop swiftly to 12,000 feet because the cabin had depressurised; the auxiliary had cut in so it didn’t feel any different to us, but anyway we couldn’t go to Trivandrum like that so we were going back to Bahrain.

Monarch Airlines Cabin Crew

The Monarch Airlines crew were very easygoing and relaxed. The pilots sounded like insurance salesmen more than ex-RAF and the cabin crew couldn’t have got into BA because the women were too dumpy or, in the case of one of them, her ears stuck out so dramatically that we could have used her to land the plane in an emergency (another emergency). The men were mostly camp and Irish.

The story of our extended stay in Bahrain airport continues with There’s a Signage Fault.

Discarded Boxes in the Airport Lounge

Bahrain Airport as the Day Comes to a Close – January 1999

This follows on from A Day at the Hilton, the Hilton Hotel in Bahrain where we spent the day sleeping, primarily, after the aeroplane we were travelling in developed a fault. Back in the airport we watched as Pakistani guest workers unwrapped their duty-free hi-fi and the package tourists queued, well what else do they ever do?

Back into buses to be taken back to the airport.

The Monarch aeroplane, or rather a Monarch aeroplane, a different one from that which had broken down, was at the embarkation tunnel but not announced on the departure screens.

We sat and watched the late night passengers departing. Most of the Arabs had gone by now. Now it was Indians and Pakistanis. Migrant workers going home, most had bought a duty-free Brixton briefcase, which they appeared to have bought in the airport duty-free shop.

Presumably the next obstacle in their lives would be convincing the customs official in Karachi that they had not just bought it duty-free, and to this end the discarded the wrapping and did a bit of minor impromptu scuffing-up. No doubt there was a dodgy backdated receipt tucked away in their tunic somewhere.

When the flight for Karachi was called, the now half-empty departure lounge was awash with discarded boxes and wrapping.

But Where Are Our Fellow Passengers?

Oh yes, of course, queuing for the aeroplane, whose departure had not even been announced yet. And why? We all have booked seats haven’t we?

Actually no, as we discovered as the last people to board. It was a different type of aeroplane. Bigger, but people had been spreading themselves out across the rows of three. And being the last ones on we could not find two seats anywhere close together, except where the crew had reserved for themselves in the rear of the plane. They unreserved a couple of seats for us, to avoid disappointment, and to avoid having to ask anyone to move over to make room.

Off We Go Again

Off we go again, up in the air, the cabin crew being incredulous that we declined a gin and tonic, which was now free on account of the inconvenience. Everyone else so far as we could see had one, many people grabbing two.

One of the reasons for the additional delay was that the airport at Trivandrum did not open until 8am, so we couldn’t take off until 4½ hours before that, at 2.30am Bahrain time.

Another airline meal of dry, squeaky chicken, and by the time that was all cleared away we got about an hour’s snooze before looking out of the window at the palm trees and white beaches of southern India.

The story continues with This is India.

This is India

India is a Good Place, Well, If Chaos Is Good That Is – Trivandrum January 1999

We arrive at Trivandrum airport on the flight from Bahrain, following on from Discarded Boxes in the Airport Lounge. There is a can-only-happen-in-India moment with passports at the airport. Is it only a package-tourist who would take a passport without checking whether it is his?

Onto the tarmac at Trivandrum airport and yes, we are in India. An old truck with steps pulls up alongside the aeroplane and the driver gets out and leads us all from the foot of the steps to the terminal building, underneath the aeroplane, right behind the jets. The Brits don’t follow him; they go round the aeroplane, while the cabin crew stand at the top of the steps looking horrified that someone might not.

Passport (lack-of) Control

Into the passport control area where the system is that a man ticks every item on your embarkation form and corrects any errors, then hands your passport to another man who stamps it, then passes it to another man who carries it to a different desk. What happens at this desk is not clear but the carrying man then brings a handful of passports back and says: ‘Whose are these?’

My passport didn’t appear. Most other people were getting theirs after a while, but not me.

The carrying man, meanwhile, was getting quite agitated because a passport was not being claimed. He kept taking it back to the desk and bringing it out again, waving it about and calling: ‘Nicola Jones!’.

It began to seem likely that Nicola Jones had taken my passport in error, so Hilary, who by now had her passport, went down into the baggage hall, to see if she could find Nicola Jones.

I, meanwhile, eventually got the man to allow me to look at the unclaimed passport, where I could see that it belonged to someone whose name was actually Nicholas James Jarvis.

I couldn’t get down to the baggage hall as I couldn’t leave passport control without a passport, however I could look over the balcony, just about, so I shouted down for Nicholas James Jarvis and a man with a walking stick looked up. Hilary honed in on him and got him to check his passport, to find it was mine. He had already used it to change some currency, still without noticing.

Hilary persuaded the man to limp up the stairs back to passport control, where he and I exchanged passports over the shoulder of the controller man, and then I could get out.

This is India. Or is it that we are perhaps just still in package-tour land?

The story continues with The Streets of Trivandrum.

Our First Agriturismo

A Trip to Italy – August 1992

We got an Air UK Bae 146 to Florence airport, with a Scottish pilot who said, upon approaching Florence, that the temperature ‘downstairs’ was 33°. He also said that the runway at Florence was rather short and that therefore the landing would be a functional rather than pretty one, though easily managed by the sophisticated technology of this *British-built* aircraft.

Old-fashioned airline pilots like that don’t exist any more, do they?

We got off and casually walked to the airport building which was under reconstruction, with a sign that said, ‘Your inconvenience today will be more than rewarded tomorrow!’

To get to the toilets in the airport one had to step over the tools and live cables of a man fixing the electrics. The loos were marble and tile, probably unchanged since the 1960s, with cables hanging down the walls that had about two inches of dust on them.

We hired a little Lancia Y10 with a worn-out centre of the steering wheel from too much pressing of the horn. At first, it was fitted with a child seat in the back, but I muchly amused the car hire clerks by passing this through the window of their cubbyhole and so creating some Italian confusion (We were novices to Italy at this time, and unaware that such episodes of confusion invariable cause delight and mirth).

Then on to our agriturismo run by Andrea, with a fine collection of baggy shorts, and Berta, who speaks good English with a deep voice, and smiles a lot.

In the agriturismo there are staying:

a. Two German-speaking Swiss, maybe just married, who are first with the sun-loungers by the pool each morning and who never go anywhere. They spend their time getting browner, Mrs having two swimming costumes so as to spread the white bits. They have little to say to each other and spend much of the day playing board games. After dinner, though, with a half litre of red down them, they sit on the terrace and are quite voluble.

b. Two German-Germans, a roly-poly man and a bony lady with red-painted toenails. Like the Swiss they appear to speak no Italian and are similarly isolated, though they do at least go sightseeing.

c. Two Italians, a man we call the Etruscan with an Etruscan haircut, curly grey, and an Etruscan beard, long and down-pointing and with a moustache that stops short of his nose. His wife, who looks older than him, like him smokes all the time and has a terrible smoker’s laugh and rasping voice. She is frightened of insects.

On the first night in the restaurant a giant moth flew in – big as a bat. Mrs Etruscan ran out with her head down and would not return until Mr Etruscan had turned off all the lights and waved his napkin about, with the aim of convincing the moth that outside was a saner place to be.

After dinner, Mr & Mrs Etruscan sit by the pool and talk, Mrs waving her cigarette in the air energetically to keep the bugs at bay.

d. Initially, Mr & Mrs Bradshaw, schoolteachers from Oxford. Mr Bradshaw cleaned the surface of the pool with a net so that his wife might have a swim, and spent the rest of his time reading in a deskchair with a white cap on his head. They left on Thursday.

e. There have been two sets of young Italians who have nothing whatever to say to each other.

f. On Friday, Mr Spindlylegs and Mrs Frumpyshoes arrived. Seriously academic-looking. At least they have plenty to say to each other in the restaurant. Mr Spindlylegs goes into the pool, but only to swim widths. He daringly borrowed the Swiss-German’s sun lounger one evening – after they had gone to get dressed for dinner.

More on this tale to follow when I get round to it.