The 36 Hour Journey Home

So the next morning, Thursday, I made my way to the airport for the long journey home. I thought I knew how long it would be (should've been 23 hours or so) but oh, how wrong I was!

The first thing I had to face was, how to get all my luggage on the plane. You see, I had bought (being the good aunty I am) quite a lot of things for my lovely nephews and nieces, plus a soprano sax for me, so I had really quite a lot of luggage. Possibly more than my allotted 20kg. And the problem with airline travel is that you are only allowed 1 piece of hand luggage (although the number of people I see who simply can't count - and who get away with it - is just phenomenal). The trick to taking more luggage than you are allowed is simply to get it somehow passed the clerk at check in. If you can manage that, you're home and hosed, as at the scanners going through to the departure lounge, no one checks the number of bags you are carrying. So, you just got to get it passed that first hurdle.

Problem is, I have 1 huge oversize bag which is absolutely chockers with my clothes, shoes, Baby Gap stuff for 2 little girls, and....

... Guitar Hero: Legends of Rock! What? Yes, you heard me, Guitar Hero - for playstation 2, for my nephews. I saw it at HMV for £20, which was just incredible - that's like $50, when in Oz, I had seen it (at the time) for $100 or more. So that was a good bargain - provided I can actually get it home.

Anyway, continuing with the problem. So, I have a huge oversize (and possibly overweight) bag to check in, plus, a chockers carry on bag (with all the heavy things from my luggage - including mugs, stuff for my computer and so on), a handbag, camera bag - and - a soprano saxophone. How can I make a carry on bag, a handbag, camera bag and a soprano saxophone look like just 1 piece of carryon luggage?

Simple. I managed to squeeze the camera bag and hand bag into the already overstuffed carryon. Now I had the problem of the soprano. There was no way it could fit in the bag (it was too long for it, for starters), and no way I could fit it in my check in luggage - plus I wasn't convinced it wouldn't get damaged there.

So, I grabbed a trolley to carry my luggage over to the counter, and I hung the sop case on the small hook over the front of the trolley, covering that with my coat. From the counter, you could not tell there was a bag hanging behind the trolley. Perfect! And it worked, too!

So anyway, I checked in and went through to the departure lounge, settling in for a coffee and preparing myself for the lengthy trip.

The flight to Kuala Lumpur was fairly uneventful, except that again the flight wasn't full, so I quickly spied my opportunity to have a row of seats to myself and at the first possible chance, took it. Excellent - 3 seats all to myself! I actually managed a little sleep on that leg of the journey.

But once we arrived to KL, the drama started. I should've only had 1 1/2 hrs stopover - but by the time we arrived, we were late - and had only 30 minutes. Ok, I can handle that - although I would've liked the chance to do a little shopping. So I boarded the last leg of my journey, found my seat, settled in and waited for take off. And waited. And waited.

Finally the announcement came over that there was some sort of technical hitch with the landing gear of the plane or something, but technicians were working on it. An hour later, and we still haven't moved. Then the situation starts to get dire, because the flight that we were on, for some completely insane reason, didn't fly direct to Brisbane, no, we had to go to Sydney first. (If I had actually read the ticket itinerary properly I would've realised that in advance - but anyway). Ok, so we have to go to Sydney. Fine.

Problem. In Sydney, because of the location of the airport in relation to houses and so on, they have a stupid curfew. This therefore meant that, if we didn't take off by midday KL time, we wouldn't be able to land in Sydney. Fine - fly straight to Brisbane and make the Sydney bound people suffer. They can stay in Brisbane and get a transfer back to Sydney. A completely logical solution.

You'd think, wouldn't you. It does make sense - to anyone going to Brisbane, or anyone with half a brain - but alas, not to the airline. So, when midday came and went, they took us off the plane (having made us sit there for 3 hours) and decided to put us up in a hotel for 12 hours.

Great, maybe I can see a bit of KL if I hurry. Petronas Towers, anyone? But alas, it wasn't to be - as the hotel they took us to was 2 hours bus ride out of KL (that makes sense doesn't it - put us up in a hotel the equivalent distance of Gympie or something from Brisbane). By the time we got there and had lunch, we really only had an hour or so to lie down before it was time to come back!

Suffice to say I wasn't really impressed. By the time I got home (and yes, we had to get off the plane - with all our luggage - in Sydney, go through some stupid scanners, and then get straight back on the SAME PLANE as before) I was absolutely shattered!

I worked out it took me 36 hours in the end... what a waste of time...and a wasted opportunity to maybe see another country...