I had no idea what I was supposed to wear but I knew that we were packing for the tropics and for the cold north where, I was informed homes were unheated, even though temperatures outside were in the 40's. Vally remained totally calm and kept reminding me that the last time he went he did all of the shopping in the last day. By the last week the living room had four suitcases, the bathroom scale and stuff spread out all over the floor. We were holding theoretical discussions about how much space our stuff was going to occupy-Vally tended to think it could all go into three suitcases, I doubted it could squeeze into four. In addition, we were both under the weather. Vally was having coughing fits at 3 AM, and we had lost a lot of sleep. Towards the end Vally was too excited to sleep. The guidebook said that one of the best ways to reduce jet lag was to be well-rested when you left. Well we weren't well-rested, we were trashed, too exhausted to be excited. Otherwise, it was very smooth. We crammed 250 lbs of luggage into 4 suitcases and everything else we could possibly need into 2 carry-on backpacks-one huge, one small. Vally's graduate student and his wife came to get us in two cars-being from China, they knew how much luggage we were going to have. We were committed to leaving because our last act was to set off bug bombs in the house. We arrived at the airport 2 hours early, like were supposed to, checked in our luggage within 10 minutes and then sat around to wait. I saw the tension drop, visibly, from Vally's body, I hadn't realized how heavy the load of getting us ready for the trip had been. We were off to India, but at the time it seemed totally ordinary, no different from the many, many other flights we had made together from Lambert Airport.
In New York, we managed to find my father and his friend Ruth. TWA has two terminals at Kennedy, and we were worried that he would go to the wrong one. Although at Lambert one can meet people at their gate, at Kennedy it is not allowed. It turns out that everyone who is waiting for someone to come in on a TWA flight waits in the same area, a large hallway outside the baggage claims area-a really dismal place, not even any seats. We hung out with my father and Ruth until it was time to go to the Gulf Air area-which turned out to be the British Airways counter. I must digress here...
Both Vally and I had called Gulf Air in the days before our flight to make sure we had a confirmed seat and that the seat was nowhere near the smoking section. Gulf Air has a truly arcane automatic answering system whereby if you press 1 to indicate that you have a touch tone phone and follow the subsequent instructions, you wind up in a blind alley and are politely but firmly disconnected. I had figured out that the only way to talk with a person was to hang on, pretend I didn't have touch tone, and then finally press another option, like "If you want to talk about freight" or something like that. We had both been reassured that we had assigned seats, 28 A and B to be precise.
At Kennedy, after the requisite 1/2 hour wait in line, it turned out that we did NOT have assigned seats. No problem, we'll just put you were in the back, right in front of the smoking section. We blanched and Vally said the magic word: "Asthma." I was impressed with what happened. The agent, a black woman who worked for British Airways and was chatting with us about her planned trip to India and her plans to start a cottage industry, suffers from something close to asthma, so she understood completely. She made a call. No luck. Then she summoned the man in charge of the flight (an arab in a khaki uniform). They had two seats, but they weren't together, and they did not even consider asking us if we were willing to sit apart. They seemed to believe us that we had booked these seats in August. Finally two seats were found. Vally thanks that our seats were given to someone else in a manner similar to that in which, undoubtedly, someone else's seats were given to us. Everyone was totally gracious about the whole thing.
One of my worries about our long flight, was staying comfortable for all of those hours in the air. I, like almost everyone else, I suppose, have never found airplane seats comfortable and even after a 3 or 4 hour trip, I am climbing the walls. We begged our more experienced friends for travel hints. Now I will pass them onto you. My sister suggested special earplugs-those we bought are called "Earplanes" (Walgreen's-same section as the contact lens products and earplugs) which help equalize the pressure on take off and landing. We did a lot of take offs and landings, both on the trip there and back and in India itself, and they were invaluable. My sister suggested Sudafed also, but I didn't do that. If you have some congestion you might still have some popping and your ears might take awhile to open up, but there is NO PAIN!!!!! Also we got inflatable neck pillows (and Vally's failed almost immediately) and an inflatable wedge pillow which is designed to go between your neck and one shoulder. I used the wedge pillow behind my back-I barely inflated it and it perfectly made up for the discrepancy between my back and the seat. The neck pillow was wonderful-I could change the fullness and use it in different configurations. We used the backpacks as foot rests. We also brought a couple of soft bed pillows with us, which were great as arm supports. I think Vally suffered a little bit from the loss of his neck pillow, but basically, we stayed comfortable the WHOLE way! I was afraid that i would be bored, but I never was. Vally watched Independence Day as we flew over the Atlantic, but I slept. The flight had 3 legs, New York to Geneva, Geneva to Bahrain and Bahrain to Bombay, and I slept during at least some of each one. I think the guidebook's advice may have been wrong. Maybe its better to start out absolutely exhausted, at least on a 28 hour trip.
Our companions on the flight were, not surprisingly, primarily East Asians, mostly going to India but some changing planes at Bahrain for Pakistan and Sri Lanka. At least 20% of the passengers were children, but they seemed to travel very well. The feeling of the flight was different from being on an American plane, although I may not be able to convey it. It was somehow more peaceful. The female (but not the male) flight attendants wore "I Dream of Jeannie" headgear for the beginning of the flight but changed later. The male, but not the female flight attendants appeared to Arabs, but the females were primarily European, Asian and North African. The languages spoken by the crew were announced at the beginning of the flight. The announcements were in Arabic and then English. The pilot's announcement sounded almost like a prayer. The food was excellent and substantial. We couldn't help comparing it, unfavorably, with TWA.
We were supposed to leave Kennedy at 8:30 and the boarding went very smoothly. At about 9:30 the pilot announced that there were 36 planes ahead of us in the queue. For some reason Kennedy was only using one runway. We got off at about 10:05. Gulf Air has a neat thing where they display the ground speed, temperature and location on an area map and as well as the name of the air traffic control sector, during take off and before landings. The way to Mecca is also indicated. It was fun to watch Mecca move around as we taxied in the airport.
We were late getting to Geneva and our 1 1/2 hour layover turned into 1/2 hour. Actually, I later found out that we didn't even taxi to the terminal, although we did take on and discharge some passengers, the plane was cleaned and we got a new crew. Sitting in the middle, in an exit row, we barely looked out the window. We did notice the sun rise (probably over London) and the sunset, somewhere over the Middle East, but little else. Our trip was uneventful, except for one American woman, travelling alone with a baby and two little girls who became very bitter towards us for sitting in a "bassinet" seat while she sat in the back. Every time she passed us on the way to the bathroom, she would hiss "Bitch" at me. It was very strange. Also, as we were landing in Bahrain, and sharing a Dilbert cartoon about flying with the flight attendants who was seated across the aisle in the jump seat, an American woman in Indian dress bolted out of her seat and into the bathroom. The flight attendant's eyes got big and she said "I hope she gets back to her seat quickly because theoretically I am supposed to call the pilot and tell him to go around again because someone isn't seat-belted." We all held our breaths and the woman got back to her seat in time.
I should describe this room. It was fairly large, like an old gymnasium, but with lower ceilings and a nondescript, dark floor. The battered wooden immigration stations were at one end. The immigration officers wore khaki uniforms. The chief officer was at a large, old wooden desk in the corner away from the stations. We were led there and told to sit down. The chief, a thin older man was dictating something to his subordinate who was dutifully writing it slowly, in longhand in a large ledger-like notebook, while making at least two carbon copies. The matter concerned someone, a woman I believe, who came from Switzerland. It quickly became clear that our host was not even going to think about our problem until he completely finished dictating this other matter and that there was no telling how long this would be. He asked us if we wanted some chai (tea) and we gratefully accepted. Chai was brought, consumed and praised, and he kept on dictating. Finally, after what seemed like half hour, he was done with the first matter. It was fascinating to watch-a consummate bureaucrat, totally in love with each detail of his work. He asked Vally where we were going, and Vally said "To visit my parents in Goa." The official said something in Konkani (the official language of Goa) and Vally responded in kind. This seemed to produced a huge change, and the official became positively magnanimous. Various conversations were going on, I assume, in Hindi and I had no idea what was being said. It took awhile before everyone realized that Vally did understand what was being said. I didn't care. I was in a daze and going in and out of feeling happy and excited and totally spaced out. Finally the official pronounced that we were suffering from "a technical error." I thought that meant we were almost home free, but NO, there were still many bureaucratic steps to be taken, including Xeroxing my passport and making phone calls. It probably took an hour in all but it was positively fun, and gave us time to collect ourselves. As we left, all attention had shifted to a man who was caught with a false passport. We caught sight of one of the most discouraged-looking people we had ever seen, sitting alone on a bench, and then we headed for our luggage, which WAS there. We were the last ones through customs. The man asked if we had anything to declare. We said "No." He looked at us skeptically, x-rayed our baggage, asked me if the lap top was going to come back with me, and then let us go. Officially, Vally is allowed to bring in about $200 worth of stuff without paying duty and I can bring in $20. I suppose we were over that, technically, but I suspect they were looking for big ticket items, not candy bars. I was worried that the people meeting us might be getting discouraged, but when we got to the arrivals area, there were still a lot of unclaimed relatives left so I was much relieved.
I spotted Vally's brothers Matthew and Chrissie before he did. I knew them, as I did almost everyone else, from their photographs. They greeted us enthusiastically, and led us to Chrissie's car, an Indian-made Premier (similar in shape to and a little smaller than a Peugeot 403). Vally was impressed by how nice it looked. Apparently it had been restored since the last visit. It became obvious that there was no way that our suitcases and our bodies could all fit into the car. It was decided that I would ride with Chrissie and the luggage and that Vally and Matthew would take a rickshaw-taxi (essentially a scooter with a cab around it and seating for 3 narrow-bodied people). It was now about 5 AM Bombay time and 5:30 PM St. Louis time. We were finally in India!