Transportation nightmares are not limited solely to trains on the Steppe. Until up to 5 or so years ago, flying too, brought one to his knees, pleading for travel mercies from the Almighty! I recall one blistering hot summer day in 2003 that SteppeSister, The Water Guy and NariLoo had to endure the long, long trek across the barren land yet one more time- this time by airplane. I don’t recall the circumstances that necessitated the travel, but I do remember in every graphic detail the travel itself. Trauma can do that.
Getting to our tiny little rural airport was a relatively simple affair. Grab a taxi and go style, we pulled up to the miniscule terminal which houses a window for tickets, a 3X10 shop that sells bottled water, gum and a few souvenirs jacked up to 1,000% of a fair price. Water was going like hot cakes that day. You know it’s an excessively hot day when a local will actually ingest a bottle of drinking water! Also housed in this singular building are passport control (a desk with a log book on it) and check-in.
With plenty of time to spare, we handed over our passports to the immigration guy who checks for visas, registrations, and what not. He tries really hard to find the “what NOT”. If there’s any hint of the “not”, you will be grilled for a long, long time. Fortunately, all was in order, but the poor Canadian guy behind us needed a bit of translation, so we stuck around and helped him out. Discerning when speaking the language will help, and when playing ignorant is best, is an art worth perfecting. This time speaking the local dialect helped this guy out of a jam.
Back then it was paper tickets only. Presenting them to the ticket lady, she exchanged them for the boarding passes, which, in those days were plastic cards with numbers on them, that you turned in as you ascended the stairs up to the plane. The baggage handling apes chucked our bags into the luggage holding room, and upstairs we went to wait.
Being a sweltering 120 F outside, the upstairs waiting room had been turned into a sticky, stuffy sauna. The non- deodorant culture was rearing its ugly smell that day, and the mint gum I had bought at 300% its normal price was going a long way to stave off BO stink-induced nausea. Luckily, we had brought our own water and saved the 1,000% mark up on the one thing we become more thankful for than anything else.
We waited and waited and waited some more and started to get nervous that our flight was going to be cancelled. One time, about a year before this, we were waiting in that upstairs room only to look out the window and see a fancy car with lights on it pull into the back driveway of the airport, followed by several other official looking cars. They drove right up to our plane and about 10 guys got on it. A few minutes later it was in the air.
Us: “Ummmm… excuse me. We have a flight to Thailand in about 10 hours- we’d sure like to make it.”
Them: “Too bad, “your plane is having “technical difficulties”, there’ll be another one coming for you in a while.”
Us: “Oh was that the one that just took off with all those guys on it? Hope those “technical difficulties” aren’t too serious!” [snort laughing]
Them: “It’ll be about 6 hours. Have a seat.
Way back then, there weren’t any taxis that just “hung out” when no planes were scheduled to come or go. And being that there were only about 2 flights a day, there was no way to get home. We had to just wait. So, this not being the first time a plane was commandeered by the Minister of Transportation, “just because”, we had every right to be fearful it might happen again.
Now, where was I? Ah, yes. Waiting, sweating, slowly melting, and wondering if we’d ever board.
Next up: Does SteppeSister and Family get on a plane this day? AND What was that noise??!
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