Journey to the Otherside of the Earth

Okay, so it's not quite the opposite side, but it certainly felt like it.

The morning of my departing flight, it started to snow, with a forecast of 3-5 inches. Although the flight wasn't scheduled to leave until 8:20 pm, we left the house just before 3 o'clock so that there would be less snow on the roads, more daylight, and my parents could return home earlier rather than later. It took almost three hours, twice as long as usual, to get to Dulles, but I still had plenty of time. We paused for tea and coffee saying goodbye.

The boarding time was 7:20, but we didn't start immediately. Soon we did board and then the plane stood at the gate for a couple of hours. At first I thought I'd read until we got underway, but at some point I decided to watch My Old Lady (starring Maggie Smith). Finally we taxied towards the runway and waited to be de-iced. I finished my movie, and started another, X-men. Then we were deiced for an hour. Then we waited to take off. Finally, sometime around midnight, we finally took off. Luckily, the plane was pretty empty, so I had a full three-seat row to stretch out in. I stayed awake long enough to be served served dinner (a very decent lamb curry with cashews, rice, and lentils....I like Qatar Airways), and then stretched out and slept. When I awoke the view was spectacular: snow covered mountains somewhere in northern Turkey. We mostly followed the mountain ranges from there, south and east to Doha.

I prepared myself for the fact that I'd probably miss my connecting flight to Kuala Lumpur. We landed ten minutes before that flight was supposed to leave. But as I walked towards the transfers hall, I was met with a sign for Kuala Lumpur. That flight was also delayed and there were five people from my flight making the connection. We were herded onto a golf cart and driven over to transfer security. At which point the man who had collected our boarding passes said to me , "I believe you're going to Bangkok and connecting to somewhere from there." "Umm, no," I responded. "I'm supposed to go to Kuala Lumpur and connect to Kunming from there." He gave me a new boarding pass to Bangkok with a connection to Kunming and told me to wait at the transfer desk for a minute. Looking at the boarding pass I saw that it was a slightly later flight. Presumably they had switched the itinerary when they saw how delayed the flight from Dulles was. But then another representative came and told me never mind, I should get on my original flight. I went through transfer security, rushed to the gate, and was given a new boarding pass and a new seat to Kuala Lumpur. The flight left about an hour late. My next layover was supposed to be an hour and five minutes.

This time we got in about 40 minutes before my flight was supposed to leave, so I was a bit nervous about it, but I thought it might be possible. By the time I got off the plane and to the transfer desk, however, the gate had just closed (20 minutes before departure). So they sent me back to my gate for Qatar Airways to deal with rebooking me. They then decided to send me through Bangkok after all, and then on to Kunming, arriving about 12 hours after I was supposed to. But, they explained, I'd need to go pick up my luggage myself and re-check-in.

This required going through immigration, so now I've officially been to Malaysia even though I never left the airport. I found my way to the proper baggage office and gave them my ticket stub. They told me to wait while they tracked where my bag was. The answer, unfortunately, was not there. It was still in Doha, having not made the connection. But Qatar airways had forwarded it to Kunming and it would get there about 36 hours after me.

I had been doing fine with all the flying (about twenty hours at this point) but sitting in the Kuala Lumpur airport waiting was tough. Eventually I found somewhere where I could curl up with my purse and backpack and doze. Once a woman woke me up to check if I was on the flight that was just beginning to board. I appreciated the concern, but I still had two hours to go. I couldn't stay awake for more than a few minutes at a time on my flight to Bangkok. But the rest was good because the Bangkok airport is huge and overwhelming. I finally arrived in Kunming last night and had to figure out where to stay. My original plan had been to go back to Baoshan in the afternoon so I hadn't booked a place. And all the cheaper hostels were sold out online, presumably due to Chinese New Year. The woman at the information desk told me there was a hotel right in front of the airport, but rooms were 400 yuan a night or there were sofa lounges in the airport that were about 100. As I was contemplating my options a woman came by and asked if I was looking for a hotel. She offered me a place with free airport shuttle service for 180 a night. I told her I was a volunteer teacher. How about 120? Done.

It's the next morning now. I'm planning on going back to the airport to make sure my luggage will be getting in tomorrow and figure out where I'll need to go to pick it up. Then I'm hoping to meet up with some other fellows who are hanging around in Kunming. On the bright side, everyone has been really nice to me. And I can still access my email and my blog! Now here's to hoping my bag arrives tomorrow!