Thursday, February 19, 2009
First, and Last Time (4)
"Surprises are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable."
-Jane Austen
"Welcome to Hyderabad," the captain said without a trace of irony.
Seatbelts were unbuckled with a synchronised snap because, deluded and exhausted, we thought we would imminently exit the plane.
"We're just waiting for the word from the authorities inside, and we'll be getting you all into the airport as soon as possible," came the increasingly familiar voice and message.
After he echoed it for the eighteenth time people grew weary of standing in the aisles and returned, grunting, to their seats.
Shortly thereafter the stewards made an appearance with water and little packages of pretzels- an ominous sign that we might hear the message a nineteenth time.
Some indeterminate amount of time later all available snacks had been consumed, the toilets were in disrepair, the stewards' tempers had reached an alarming scale and we all watched in mute horror as a passenger was removed by paramedics.
Her fate is yet unknown to me.
"Any minute now," said the captain; and true to his word, six hours after landing in Hyderabad we were given freedom.
We shuffled into the terminal to gather further instructions which were, as it turned out, to serve us for the next thirty hours.
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6 comments:
What an ordeal you have been through.
Your tales are a good reminder of how blessed we are in the "developed" world.
Paul, we were still in the developed world when all the trouble began. All the nonsense was on the part of British Airways and their crew! Truthfully, the next thirty hours were only painful because of the airline.
But in general I definitely feel it was all eye opening, and you are right about how blessed we are.
this does sound ominous, especially after the previous posts -
OMG--didn't they do ANYTHING to get you to your real destination. i seriously hate BA even more now...
Holy Nightmares Batman! I would have punched a big hole in the side of that flying airstream and made my escape. I hope you will not leave us dangling or tell us there is no unbelieveable explanation to follow. I'm hooked. Pappy
Pauline, they kept stringing us along telling us it would be any minute, any hour. We were in Hyderabad for thirty six hours, including time spent sitting on the plane.
Julie, no, they didn't. They in fact tried very hard to keep us in Hyderabad. It did feel that way for lots of reasons.
Texican, I think some were on the verge of doing just that.
It was a very tense and difficult six hours, and completely unjustified.
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