Upon arrival at Bangkok airport, I crossed my fingers my luggage wouldn't be too heavy for my allotted 20 kilos. When I saw the amount of luggage the passengers in front of me were carrying, I began to worry a bit less. As it turned out, my bags weighed 31 kilos (!!!) which they didn't even flinch at, thank goodness. Luckily my flights home are in business class which allows 30 kilos. Anything heavy I buy from here out will have to be carried on the plane!
I told my friend Aileen that taking an Indian airline to India is a great way to ease into the culture. It was a mob scene getting on the plane, even though we all had assigned seats, and I was in the 2nd to last row so had to push through all of it. The overhead compartments at the back of the plane were used for airline storage so we had to use those a few rows up. I wonder what happened by the time the first row got on...
I was pleasantly surprised to see that each seat had it's own video console with a selection of TV shows and movies you could start at any time. I watched one sitcom before they served breakfast, another nice surprise as it was plentiful and even tasted good. This is where things started going off the rails. In order to serve drinks, the crew had to get the cups that were stored in the overhead compartment above me. In doing so, they dropped a heavy metal cup (or something of the sort) directly on my head. The only reason it didn't hurt more is that it landed on the band of my headset. She looked embarassed, but didn't say anything and went on her way. The lines for the bathroom started forming before breakfast was even cleared away and were two people wide, forcing the flight attendants to push through to take each individual tray back to the galley. Needless to say, this took most of the rest of the flight. As one flight attendant pushed by me I felt something stab me in the back. Did she seriously just drop a fork on me? I reached behind me and realized her nametag had fallen of. I returned it to the next flight attendant that walked by, who looked very confused that I would have her colleague's name tag. Moments after that another flight attendant reached into the overhead compartment again and dropped dozens of plastic cups all over the man sitting in front of me. Again, a look of embarassment, but no real apology. The most ungraceful crew ever! I have learned always to fly in a window seat on such flights...
My excitement over the video screens was shortlived as all the screens on the right hand side of the plane died 10 minutes into my movie. The man behind me decided that pounding on his screen would be helpful, even though they had announced that all of them were not working, so I was jolted back and forth continuously. Eventually the crew announced they were going to restart the system to see if that would fix the problem. That meant the left side could not use theirs either. The system finally came up 10 minutes before they announced our descent and the right side never did work. The flight attendants then came through and collected our headsets. By the time they got to our row their arms were quite full. In reaching over to get the headset from the person in the window of my row she managed to whip the woman in the middle seat in the face with a few dozen headset cords. It just didn't end! At this rate we'd all be battered and bruised upon arrival. After they finished with the last row, another crew member made an announcement that they would now start collecting the headsets. Did she not see this going on?
Our landing was smooth, but we jerked down the runway after hitting the tarmac, the way a car jerks when a new driver is learning to use the brakes. At least this was after we had already arrived safely! As we landed, the crew announced that all cell phones should remain switched off until the seat belt sign came off. Before the announcement was even completed the text message tones of dozens of phones echoed throughout the cabin. Then the man behind me (the screen smacker) stood up and bolted to the front of the plane as fast as he could. Half a dozen other people followed his lead, albeit a bit slower. The flight attendants had to collect them all and put them in their seats so we could taxi on to the gate.
While we were taxiing, a German man asked one of the flight attendants if he needed to fill out the immigration form since he was catching a flight that would take him out of the country and wouldn't be spending any time in India. Her reply was "I don't know so just fill it out so you'll be ready no matter what."
While I waited to get off the plane, I started chatting to another American standing next to me. He had been on a similar solo trip and was winding down as well. Turns out he was from Chicago and used to work in advertising. Small world. He had been on numerous flights from this airline and said the video screens had never worked. Welcome to India!
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