Great views from 9.5 kilometres

I can never understand why people ask for window seats and then keep the blinds drawn. With seat back movies, open blinds are less likely to bother neighboring passengers, but our location at the back of the section was perfect for hassle-free viewing as we flew over mostly cloud-free India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Passing over the coast of India’s Andhra Pradesh state.

The view from 12,000m of Pakistan’s Indus River showed a different aspect to the recent flood disaster: the area just beyond the river course is empty desert, so people in the valley would not have been able to just move out of the way.

The Indus River in flood. Punjab, Pakistan.

Afghanistan was a surprise. Our flight path crossed between Khandahar and Kabul over rugged dry mountains with almost no vegetation, and only the sparsest sign of agriculture in a few of the valleys.

Irrigated fields and orchards along a watercourse flowing
into Lake Istadeh, Ghazni, Afghanistan.

Roads were quite visible, and some had evident checkpoints along them, but otherwise it seemed incredible that there would be any reason to have our armed forced involved in conflict there.

The road on the left runs between Kandahar and Kabul:
with our binoculars, we could see a military checkpost along it.

However, the view from above reveals the geopolitical reasons for conflict: access to the Indian Ocean from the north, and the only land passage between the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East has doomed this barren land to conflict for generations.

Crossroads land: the rugged land below connects oil-rich central Asia
to the Indian Ocean, and the Indian subcontinent to Eurasia.

The eastern shore of the Caspian Sea was clear, but clouds covered most of Georgia and Russia as we flew westward.

The eastern edge of the Caspian Sea in Kazakhstan
marked the end of clear views for our flight.

We could catch occasional glimpses of neat farmland of Poland and Germany before descending through cloud to land on time at busy Heathrow.

A very long day

Our last day on Victoria’s southern coast.

We awoke to a sunny Sunday morning—our last in Victoria, and the start of a long “day” of travel.

Our hosts drove us to Warrnambool to catch the train to arrive in Melbourne at 20:30; then a bus from downtown to the airport. Our flight was to leave at 01:05 Monday morning but we were in the air five minutes early. I’d selected seats at the back of one of the sections to have just two seats in the row; all of the rest of the economy section is configured as 3-4-3. These seats also have a bit more leg room, so we managed to catch a bit of sleep on the 7.5 hr flight to Singapore.

Katharine at the free Internet kiosks at Changi Airport.

Singapore’s Changi Airport is big and modern, with the typical shopping arcade of major airports. Free Internet access helped pass some of the time in our quite welcome 3 hour layover.

Back aboard for the next leg to London Heathrow—and 13 hours in the air as we followed the sun over 12 time zones to arrive at 15:30.

A terrorism threat had no apparent effect on Heathrow arrivals, but the customs clearance wait took almost the hour the signs predicted. Then we were out with our bags and onto a bus to the car hire place. With our GPS installed in the Volvo diesel—and a bit of maneuvering practice in the parking lot—we were soon onto the M25 for the 2 hour drive to Katharine’s cousin’s place.

Finally… into a bed after nearly 44 hours of travel.

The cost of “cheap flights”

Tiger Airways flight prices certainly support the “fly cheaper” tag on their promotional banner: we had paid just A$140 to get both of us from Melbourne to Brisbane—a two-hour flight.

How can they manage to provide such low-cost flights?

• Online bookings. It may be possible to buy tickets at the counter, but we didn’t see anyone doing so—and there was no obvious counter.
• An “extra” charge is levied for everything. Water in a 325ml bottle was S$6; weight surcharges for bags >15kg are steep; food is expensive (and pretty basic) on board—and they have signs imploring people not to bring food aboard (although there was no apparent reason other than people would then not buy food on board).
• Use of minimalist airport services. The Singapore airport was not the new and fancy one; instead, it was a dingy hall with a McDonalds and minimal services. The Melbourne check in looked temporary, and the security check was about a slack as we’ve seen since the 1980s. Even the boarding was minimal: several passengers were very annoyed to have to walk down a long hall, and then out onto the tarmac to climb up stairs to board. (We rather appreciated the fresh air after the dingy terminal!) 
• Crowd people into the plane. Just as well the seats didn’t recline on the Melbourne-Brisbane flight, because there was just barely enough room for my knees.
• No on-board entertainment.
• Weird flying hours. Our flight left at 6am, and the online ticket was pretty clear about being there at 4am to check in. We managed that, and were near the front of the line—but by 5am, the counters were closed so the staff could process passengers after security. If you arrived after 5am, too bad…

For a two-hour flight, none of the above were too onerous. The longer flights—like our Singapore-Perth flight—had seats that did recline, but none of the amenities common to more major carriers.

Are better amenities worth the extra cost? Fares for Melbourne-Brisbane flights later that same day were ~A$300 each, so for us, the A$460 saved meant quite a few nice meals…

Double-check assumptions

We knew we would need to be efficient to see Singapore’s Jurong Bird Park and still make it to the airport for our 13:50 check-in. Despite the pouring rain, there was lots to see and we had to pull ourselves away by 11:45.

The MRT got us back to the hotel by ~12:45 time to shower, change, pack and get a taxi to the airport for our 13:50 check in. It all seemed very smooth, and we were congratulating ourselves at our efficiency as we presented our ticket confirmation numbers and passports.

But then… “And your Australian visas?”

What?? Canadians don’t need visas for Australia!

Unfortunately, we do. In fact, the little matter that we also hadn’t obtained visas for Singapore had apparently been overlooked as well…

“Not to worry”, the helpful check-in guy said. “It happens a lot. Go over to that counter and they'll give you an email address you can use to get one online from the free Internet at the McDonalds.”

Well, it wasn’t quite that simple. The info counter clerk made a quick call, and told us we’d have to catch a shuttle (with all our bags) for Terminal 2 to have things processed at the Singapore Airlines counter. We dashed out to catch the shuttle just in time to have to wait for his smoke break. Argh!

Anyway, with way more sweating than we’d expected—and an unexpected SGD$100 ATM withdrawal to pay for them—we did manage to get the visas. Another shuttle bus ride and were back to the same check-in guy just before he closed the flight. With great relief, we cleared through and got our flight.

Moral? Never assume anything when it comes to visas!

Returning is so much easier

As we left our plane from Saigon, the signage and halls of Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport had a welcome familiarity. Immigration was quick and hassle-free; our bag arrived shortly after the carousel started, and the customs clearance was a mere wave.

As we turned out of the arrival hall, a sign with our names on it greeted us: we’d arranged online for a car to bring us to Pattaya, and she was there waiting for us. A few minutes later, we were ensconced in the air-conditioned comfort of a new car, and our 21-year old woman driver was whisking us along the highway.

We’d booked a room at the Orchid Guesthouse—again online with only email confirmations—and were greeted at the gate by Brian, the new manager. We paid the driver, checked in with Brian—and were settled into our room less than 2 hours after landing.

Online bookings help make travel so much easier—but returning to a familiar place certainly helps take the edge off of arriving!

Leaving on a jet plane

Being able to print a boarding pass at home is certainly a big change from the sheaf of papers we had to have in hand when we did a similar trip in the mid-80s. But of course then there was only minimal airport security, and it was still possible to catch a flight minutes before the gate closed...

Flight 189 to Vancouver being prepared at Ottawa airport.

We left Ottawa a bit behind schedule and managed to see some dim lights at Spiritwood as we gained altitude over the Ottawa River. Happily, it was an uneventful flight to Vancouver.