Journey across the globe

Kishore C.S. (July 2000)

Traveling across the pacific all the way from US to India has been my most recent travel experience. I am sharing my experience in this article.

My journey started on 2^nd July midnight. My travel itinerary was as given below

Journey back home is always a welcome journey and the hardships of journey can be forgotten once you reach home.

Each major airlines has one flight that starts at midnight from San Fransisco and Other West Coast Airports that travel all the way to Eastern countries of Japan, Taiwan, Hongkong. The flight time is the maximum of 14 hours and it is a very tiresome journey. Since the flight travels with earth the time it takes more time than it takes to cover the same distance on the reverse journey. And one looses a day traveling this way. Sitting in an economy class flight for 14 hours is the thing I dreaded and fortunately this experience was over without a major strain. I slept most of the journey and didn’t feel like eating the two time meals that were served on board. Since the journey started middle of the night I was able to go to sleep immediately and I continued to sleep for 10 hours. After getting up I watched cartoons on the personal TV that exists in such international flights and then also played games like Hangman for sometime. The flight which was flying at 30,000 ft was pleasant except for occasional turbulence. The outside temperate is shown as –50 Centigrade which I could not imagine otherwise. The flight reached Hongkong slightly ahead of schedule.

It was pleasant morning in Hongkong. I finished my formalities of getting boarding pass for the next flight to Hongkong and proceeded to the gate. With such big airports one needs to walk or take a train to reach respective gate. I had to take a shuttle train to go the boarding area. The spacious and well maintained airport terminal gives a comfort feeling. The airport was also not crowded. I took the time to refresh myself and then proceeded to a restaurant. Getting Vegetarian food is so difficult and I had to contend myself with a chips packet, couple of Kitkat chocolates and a coke. Also browsed around the shops in airport and bought a couple of books. Spent next two hours waiting for the flight time and read the book I bought meanwhile.

Flight from Hongkong to Singapore was for around 4 hours and I had the Vegetarian meal served in the flight which included couple of rotis with channa masala, Gulab Jamoon. The flight arrived in singapore on time.

I had around 6 hours of waiting time in Singapore. I went to Transfer Desk (to change from one flight to another flight) and got my boarding pass for Air India flight. Instead of spending time on the chairs of Airport, I decided to take rest and proceeded to the Transit Hotel in Singapore Airport. Compared to my previous experience (when I went to US in 1997) where I spent 8 hours in Singapore Airport on the chairs, this 6 hours rest in Hotel helped in relaxing well. The money (35 US $ per 6 hours) was worth it. I took a bath and took rest. I also went to Telecommunications center in the airport and made a call to India. Then I went to the Food Court which contains food for every country. Went to the Indian Food Stall and got myself a decent meal which included 2 Parathas and a vegetable. I went back to hotel and took more rest and watched TV. I got the wake up call one hour before the flight when I vacated the hotel and proceeded to Boarding Gate. I was very relaxed after the bath and sleep.

Air India flight was delayed by an hour and the flight looked crowded. In this flight everyone was Indian compared to the earlier flights which had good number of other country people. The feeling of being in India started from the time I boarded this flight. I was eagerly looking forward to arrival in chennai which happened at 9:30 PM.

Completion of formalities in the airport (Bagage Claim, Immigration and Customs) took another one hour and I was at home by 10:30 PM.

Jetlag becomes a major problem after such a journey and for a couple of days I got up at 2 or 4 AM in the morning and could not go back to sleep. Fortunately this was over in a couple of days.

Note: This is my first travelogue article and I hope this didn't bore you.