First Flight
Here I was, in a hurry to finish off the formalities that I had to complete before I left for my first trip to the US. Though, most of the things were done, I had to go to the office to get some emergency contacts, and say bye to my friends. After these things were over, I had to meet one of my friends who had just come from US, and was here for his vacations. Though I had a very tight schedule, I made it to the place where I was supposed to meet him. I was waiting for him, and was also keeping an eye on my watch, because I had to leave for Mumbai, in another hour. After a brief greeting and some tips from him about what I would need to do on the airport, I came back home. In almost half an hour the cab came to my place and I left for Mumbai.I had never traveled by plane before, so was excited about my first plane journey, and that too was an International flight. I had some idea, that the airport would be very big, and would find it difficult to reach my terminal. But thanks to my driver, who somewhat knew this airport area and to Airports authority of India, who had put sufficient boards to guide us to the correct terminal. We reached airport well in advance, some three hours before the flight. But, that is what they recommend for International flights. My flight bookings were from Mumbai to London and from there to Seattle. I met another person from my company, who was also going to travel with me till London in the same plane. My parents were happy to see that I had somebody with me at least till London. The luggage was scanned, as per the rituals at the airports, after all these are the places from where many expensive things are smuggled, aren’t they? That is what we see in the movies. I was also told to show my passport, tickets and visa. The lady who was checking my passport, tickets and visa, immediately noticed that I was traveling for the first time. She confirmed that with me and made some arrangements to give me a seat in a better cabin, so that I would enjoy my first flight, in their airlines.
My luggage was already gone, and I was told that I would get it directly at the Seattle airport. I was left with only my cabin luggage and ample of time to spend before my flight. I spent some time alone at the duty free shops on the airport. There were many shops, some selling Indian handicrafts. These people very well knew what the foreign tourists would like to take back with them. I saw that this place was buzzing even at 2:00 AM at night, when most of the people outside this airport must be sleeping. Oops, not on this day, even the people outside won’t be asleep, as it was 31st Dec and people would be celebrating the arrival of the New Year. I was actually leaving on an odd day. I also spent some time chatting with this colleague of mine, about office. I also came to know about his earlier US and Canada trips. I also came to know about his native place, where all he has been in the US before, and where he is going now. He was going to Boston, and as I came to know, it would be very cold at this time of the year. He was a very talkative person. In between I also tried to grab some moments of ‘Sholay’, it was being screened on the many television sets across the airport. You could easily notice how popular this movie must have been in those days, because all the Indians were watching this movie with interest at 2:00 AM, and that too after around 29 years. But the foreigners were least bothered about Jai,Veeru and the Thakur, and they were eagerly waiting for their flight which would probably take them back to their motherland.
Eager, as I was, to get on the flight, I had also tried to clear another security check at around 12:00 AM. But later came to know that this check was being done for some other flight, which was going to leave from the same gate, but for some other destination, Nairobi. But finally I cleared the last of the security checks and boarded the flight at 2:40 AM. The interiors of the plane were really good. I had already come to know from some people that British Airways is a good airline, and my company does not generally get a ticket of BA as it costs them a lot. But both my tickets were BA. So I was one of the lucky people. The seats were cozy and were also equipped with small television sets for everyone. It also had some radio channels, but they were clever enough to promote BBC, as their first channel was BBC. It was interesting to note that there were two types of airhostesses, one in Indian sarees and the other in English dress, skirts and tops. This was indeed good, as there were many Indians to whom these Indian airhostesses would serve better as they understood Hindi. This journey was a ten hour journey. I had an elderly Indian person sitting besides me. I could see the small TV screen in front of me, but there was something unusual, something which was not like the TV at my home. Yes, it was the audio, I searched for the earphones, which were lying besides my seat. But now there was an even bigger problem, where do I plug it? I looked all round the screen looking for a place to plug the earphone. Finally I decided, to ask the person besides me, who did not seem very friendly. After all what could I do? I could not spend the next ten hours watching the TV without audio. But he told me that I could plug the earphones in a place just to the left of my seat. All the news channels were providing 24 hours coverage of the recent earthquake and the Tsunami disaster. The epicenter was somewhere close to Indonesia and the Tsunami waves had caused havoc in many places, including Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and coastal parts of Tamil Nadu. The media along with the newspapers were giving the details of how many million dollars help was being provided by the United States and the British. Coming back to the plane, I discovered one more thing there. This TV had a remote with a phone on the back side!!! That too was properly embedded in the seat. What all could they club in such a small place. This reminds me of another cabin in the plane called ‘Club class’ or something. We had to pass this cabin before we reached our cabin. Our cabin was very similar to any bus. I mean the arrangements were similar, apart from the cozy seat and fundo things like a small TV and stuff like that. But this Club class was something special. These seats were even more comfortable. Two seats arranged in opposite directions and these seats seemed to have even more things embedded in it. They were also served with a welcome drink and may be some more stuff at a later stage in the journey. Later, I also discovered, from their information brochures that they had something like Club class membership and a concession for the members who traveled frequently.
As the plane started, they had a small video clip informing us about fastening our seat belts, emergency exits and oxygen masks, etc. We got food twice or thrice during the journey. Actually one of them was supposed to be the breakfast and other was to be the lunch, I guess. But, since we were continuously changing the time zones, I could not call one as breakfast and other as lunch. In between surfing the channels, I also slept for a few hours, as it was night for me after a hectic day. I also kept an eye on the channel, which constantly was showing where I was on this globe and the plane’s route, along with important cities that we were flying over. It was also giving information about how high we were flying, time at origin, time at destination, wind velocity and temperature outside the plane. I was most interested in knowing this temperature outside the plane. It kept on varying between -50degrees (at 32000ft) to -60 degrees (at 36000ft)!!! The first time I saw this temperature, I started feeling cold even though I was feeling comfortable before that. That made me pull on the shawl that they had provided.
After some 9 hours or so, I could see we were coming close to the destination, London. It was something like 6:45 am in London. We were probably flying over London, as I could see the clouds below being pampered from both the sides, by the dim sunlight from the top and the city lights from below. And suddenly our plane came at a lower altitude and I could see a blanket of lights right below our plane. This was my first glimpse of London!!! It was like the Britishers were celebrating Diwali. And surely, they must be celebrating a few hours before, because what I was seeing was the first dawn of the year 2005 on London city. After flying round and round for three four times our pilot got a signal to land. Slowly our plane neared this place where I could see many other planes. And then I could feel our plane touching the ground on the Heathrow airport.
posted by Amol @ 1:37 PM
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