Leaving China: A Postscript

Saturday, 05 August. I got up an hour early to prepare for the trip leaving Xi’an, and I still ended up about at the point I had been all week by 8:00am. Actually, I was about 15 minutes early. By 8:00, I was in the taxi headed to the airport.

Before getting into the taxi, I checked out of the hotel. I got a pleasant surprise, because I found out that all the in-room internet service I had used during my 2 weeks there was free. It was free because we have a corporate account. Nice.

As it turns out, on the way to the airport, I was in the taxi with Jenny. She was heading the opposite direction, North to Beijing, to be with her family for the weekend. I was heading South to Guangzhou, to connect to Singapore and then on to Bangalore, India. My flight left at 9:30 and hers at 10:15. So, we made the 40 minute ride to the airport together.

I was glad Jenny was with me. I found my way to the check-in desk more quickly with her help, and that’s when the fun started. I had two bags to check. Trouble is, Hainan airlines allowed only 20kg of checked luggage. Two bags were fine, but only 20kg total. Now, to put this in perspective, I had two bags and the total was more than double that much. But it was only a kg or two more than what I had brought into the country two weeks ago. And 20kg of luggage for two weeks of international travel would be absurdly inadequate. That might net out at as pair of shoes, some toiletries, and maybe 3 changes of clothes. So, after much (and I mean A LOT of) argument between Jenny and the counter agents, the net result was I paid about $69US for the extra luggage. The argument went on for nearly 10 minutes before I gave up and paid. Of course, I couldn’t understand anything that went on, but at one point the discussion took an unmistakable-in-any-language turn. The agent’s manager had come over to pick up the argument with Jenny, and the agent-manager suddenly pushed my boarding pass back across the counter with a look on her face that said, “no problem. If you don’t pay you can keep your boarding pass and go away.” Of course, that wasn’t an option, so I went to the Information Desk and paid the 559RMB. Sheesh.

So, without much additional fanfare, I went on through security to my gate. The plane departed about 30 minutes late. The next thing that happened can only be described as the WORST CASE SCENARIO.

PITT #7: BE SURE YOU HAVE ADEQUATE TIME FOR YOUR TRANSFER FROM DOMESTIC TO INTERNATIONAL (or vice-versa) FLIGHT. Anything less than 2 hours is simply not enough. Not enough, not enough, not enough. Repeat after me, not enough. And in case I haven’t mentioned it, less than 2 hours simply isn’t enough. Read on…

My itinerary had me in Guangzhou for 90 minutes between flights, coming in from Xi’an on a domestic flight and then transferring to an international flight to continue on to Singapore and then on to Bangalore. Well, my flight left Xi’an 30 minutes late. It arrived with just under an hour to make the transfer. Trouble is, I had to collect my bags at the baggage claim and re-check them at the international check-in counter. By the time I had collected the bags, I had 35 minutes. It certainly didn’t help things that I wasn’t familiar with the airport. I eventually found the international check-in counter I needed. That was after fighting with the luggage carts. They have two back wheels and one on a swivel under the middle and the swivel wheel would start to oscillate back and forth if I walked as fast as I’m used to walking. In fact, at one point it started oscillating and the next thing I know, I had dumped the entire thing over and fallen on top of it. I think the people in the airport might have learned how to swear in English right then, but I’m not going to say how…

Anyway, I got to the ticket counter, finally, with about 20 minutes to go. Too late. The flight to Singapore had already closed. I was stranded!

Well, without going into all the gory – VERY, VERY, VERY gory – details (some of you can read those details elsewhere if you want to), I now write this update from a seat on a plane to Bangkok, Thailand. I’ll change planes in Bangkok and go on to Bangalore from there. I will arrive just an hour and fifteen minutes behind my original schedule, even though I finally left Guangzhou almost exactly three hours after the flight I missed was supposed to have left. Geographically speaking, Guangzhou-Bangkok-Bangalore is much more direct than Guangzhou-Singapore-Bangalore. That’s why.

So, assuming no further problems, this will be my final Reflection on China for this trip. I hope you all have had as much fun reading along with and following my daily exploits, as I have had writing it. Although it took an ENORMOUS amount of time each night to update (some nights, more than three hours, and every night it was at least one and a half to two hours), I am so glad I decided to start and maintain this story. This blog tells an incredible story about my AMAZING journey! But far more importantly, it's been educational and helpful and entertaining to so many others. So now, to return to a short conversation with the Team that I had about saying goodbye, So long! See ya! Catch ya later! Buh- bye! And farewell from (and *to*) China!