Leaving Lamu

After a few days in Lamu, it was time to head back to Nairobi for the Intermission Retreat.  It's only a little more than a couple of hours to fly, so I landed in Nairobi by 1:45 in the afternoon.  I took one of the small motorboats back across the channel to the airport.  Since it's hot weather around here nearly year-round, the airport waiting room is open air.  It would have been nice to have a bit of air conditioning, but at least there's shade.  

 In the photo above, you can see Lamu along the coast of the island across the channel. The water was a beautiful color as we flew down the coast, although the pictures aren't great as the plane window was quite smudged.

Inland, it's dusty and dry.

Once I landed back at Nairobi Wilson airport, I had a while to wait because I had planned for someone from the Monduli crowd to pick me up as they passed the airport on their way up, as they were all driving up that day.  It was a bit stressful at first because I couldn't get my phone to work, even though I'd bought a roaming bundle that should have allowed me to use whatsapp in Kenya.  I couldn't get a Kenyan sim card because all the official sim card sellers are only allowed to sell sim cards to people with Kenyan IDs.  I'm sure it's possible somewhere to get a sim card without said ID, but the places at the airport follow the law.  Finally someone told me that there was a Java House restaurant down by the private jet area that has good wifi.  That was a wonderful move--the food was great, the wifi was strong, and they didn't mind at all that I stayed for six hours since they weren't too busy.  I splurged on the crazy sundae below.  My waiter was really nice; they close at nine except for a side part for private functions, but he offered to let me stay anyhow rather than sending me outside at night.  Fortunately, I had been in contact with the Monduli crowd and Ralph and Twyla Williams had agreed to stop and get me, and they would be arriving soon, so I headed back down by the airport entrance to meet them.  It was pretty late by the time we arrived, after 11 pm.  Tomorrow Intermission begins!

Easter Break: Flying up the coast to Lamu

Flying over the savannah of eastern Kenya between Nairobi and Mombasa

After waking up in Nairobi, I headed to the smaller of the two Nairobi airports, Wilson airport.  This airport serves domestic flights around Kenya and private planes, mostly.  It was a rather interesting experience as it doesn’t have one central terminal. Each airline has their own building with their offices and their own little check-in counter and waiting room.  So, once you find the building of the airline you’re flying with somewhere along a long road of one after the other, you check in your luggage, get your boarding pass, and THEN they bus you back down to the one boarding gate, somewhere back by the entrance.  I was really glad that I had paid a little extra for the lady who runs the guesthouse where I stayed (who was really nice) to drive me down there, as she asked directions from the workers and got me to the right building. 

The city of Mombasa from above.  Maybe someday I'll make it back for a closer look.

I took a flight from Nairobi to Lamu, with a stop in Mombasa (a major city on the coast) on the way.  In Mombasa we just stopped to pick up more people; I didn’t have to get off the plane.  It was rather like a flying bus.  It was a beautiful sunny day and I had a window seat, so I enjoyed watching the coastline as we flew. 

Juice boxes on the plane!

Lamu has its own little airport on a nearly deserted island just across the channel; it’s the kind of place that only has one plane at a time, so you just get off the plane on the runway and walk yourself into the building.  Coming out the other side of the airport building, I followed everyone else down the path to the pier, where longboats were waiting to ferry us across to the town. 

Flying up the Kenyan coast

The marshy land along the coast near Lamu.

Getting off the flying bus...

Making my way into the airport...

Arrival at Mt Kilimanjaro National Airport

And I have arrived!  It's a beautiful Wednesday afternoon here in Tanzania.  Kilimanjaro International Airport is pretty small; no pulling up to a gate here.  There are few enough flights that the people who live around here know what flights land at one time; Lewis says that there is a daily KLM flight that comes in in the evening so when you see a big plane at that time, you know that's what it is.

Once we got off the plane, I had to fill out a form for my tourist visa.  The forms were available in a tent out back, so I had that ready by the time I made it in the building.  The line for visas wasn't too long; I waited there while everyone else went ahead to get the luggage (not out of sight; arrivals is really all one big room).  I had no problems at all getting a tourist visa (despite the worried of the Italian check-in guy); five minutes later I was walking out the front door of the airport, to be met by this little welcoming committee:

I'd been on the flight with the girls, of course, but they'd run on ahead as the others were taking the luggage out to the cars.  Beth, an American who is married to a Tanzanian and lives in Monduli, has become a close friend of the Shorts' and she had come to drive one of the two cars needed to pick us all up.  She had made a nice sign for me, and her little boy was there to hold it up for me.  He's such a sweet kid. :)  (If you can't read it in the picture, it just says 'Welcome to Tanzania, Katy.'

It took two cars for all of and all of our stuff.  Beth had driven one, and Albert, the Shorts' neighbor and driver for the school, brought the other.  The one Albert drove, that you can see in the photo below, takes diesel and is a tough four-wheel-drive, which you need around here.  The other car we were in is also a four-wheel drive, but slightly smaller and not diesel.  In the end, all the luggage was piled into the brown car, leaving room for only Albert and Lewis.  The rest of us piled into the other.  I thought I took a better selfie than this in the car, but I think I took it on Michela's phone and I haven't remembered to get it from her yet.  And no...I am not driving.  This part of the world drives on the left.  :)

It's a nearly three hour trip from the airport to Monduli; we fortunately stopped at a nice gas station with a little shop about forty-five minutes in for cold drinks.  I got a pineapple Fanta...if you ever get the chance, try one!  They're amazing.  

Layover in Addis Ababa

My first view of Africa was as we landed on Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.  Someday I'd like the chance to look around from ground level; the landscape was beautiful from above.   

The Shorts had flown through Addis Ababa before, back when they were moving to Tanzania, and had avoided it since, but the flight through there was cheap enough to risk it again.  The first time, the terminal waiting area had been tiny, overly crowded, and completely lacking in amenities.  Fortunately, it has been much expanded in the years since and at least it is now sufficiently spacious, although you have to go out of security to buy anything whatsoever.  Fortunately, there was a water fountain to refill our bottles.  We had plenty of time had we wanted to go out of security, but who wants the bother?  Lewis and I stayed awake to keep up with the time and which gate we would need to be at while the others got a couple more hours of sleep. 

And I'm Off!

And I’m off!  

I wonder if my parents ever realized how much trouble their children would still be even in their thirties...my flight this morning was at six am, meaning I needed to be at the airport around four, which meant leaving the house around three, which meant waking up around two...and yet they still volunteered to take me to the airport.

I flew to Newark, where I had an eight-hour layover (I don’t mind layovers, really; I like airports), which was just annoying because of how early I had to fly out to get there.  Surely there’s another flight to Newark later in the day?? From Newark, I took an overnight flight to Lisbon, Portugal. Well, I say ‘overnight’ as it was nearly six am when we landed, but with the time difference, it was more like arriving around midnight.  I did manage to get some sleep on the flight though. From Lisbon, I will take a flight to Venice and then the train to Milan, where I’ll stop for a few days to visit the church where I worked previously for a few days before continuing on to Tanzania.

Layover in Bangkok

Any of you who have ever traveled through Asia probably know that Bangkok is definitely the flight hub of the region.  It has two international airports--a fact I learned when I wasn't paying attention and scheduled a flight into one and out of the other last year; fortunately I had a long enough layover to make it across town, and fortunately it was four in the morning so there was no traffic.  Except for that incident, I've always flown through Don Mueng, because that's one of Air Asia's (the discount airline for this part of the world) hubs. 

Although the only time I spent time in Bangkok I arrived and departed by bus, this trip will give me my fourth and fifth go-rounds through this particular airport.  I'm learning my around pretty well by now, and I always enjoy stopping because they have a Krispy Kreme.

Flying Home

I guess they don't want to encourage people to sleep on the chairs in the waiting area of the departure hall, but they know very well that many people do, so it seems like they would be a little kinder in having chairs without gaps in between them to make it slightly more comfortable.  Oh well.  I arranged my bags around in the seat next to me and made a pillow of sorts out of a jackets and a couple of scarves.  I had intended to use my inflatable neck pillow, but it inopportunely sprung a leak.  I couldn't find any comfortable way to recline, but made myself somewhat comfortable sitting up leaning on my bags.  I used on of the sarongs I bought in Ubud as a blanket, and actually slept fairly well, all things considered.  I probably got four hours or so of sleep all together, although I'd have to wake up every forty-five minutes or so to unkink all my muscles that were going to sleep.  

About a quarter to five I rearranged my stuff back into flying order and went to brush my teeth and freshen up.  I planned to put on shoes at this point, but I just couldn't bring myself to just yet.  I may end up being cold for a few minutes once I land in Wuhan, but it's worth it for a few more hours in flip-flops.  

Check-in and security went as usual, and I headed in search of breakfast on the way to the gate.  I had been disappointed, as the Krispy Kreme I had been to on my last trip through the Don Mueng airport was on the domestic departure side, and there wasn't one listed on the international departure side.  Fortunately, the signs were wrong...there it was, tucked in the corner right next to the Subway and McDonalds.  I had a subway sandwich for breakfast (yes, I know that's rather an odd breakfast, but I wanted something solid and non-greasy), sitting in a small waiting area balancing it on my lap, since all the tables were full.  I bought a couple of donuts, of course--I ate one for dessert after I finished my sandwich.  I wasn't in the least bit hungry for it, and sadly it was cold (what kind of Krispy Kreme doesn't have warm donuts at 6:30 in the morning??), but after I'd waited all night for it I wasn't going to turn it down.  I saved the other for later, though, as it was cold anyhow.  

I finally wandered down to the gate.  After sitting for a few minutes, I stood up and surveyed my belongings, considering whether I needed to go bad enough to schlep it all to the bathroom or not, when someone three rows back stood up to and called my name.   

Kristin, who works at the university-next-door where we go on Sundays, had been travelling in Thailand and had booked the same flight back to Wuhan.  Later on, we saw another teacher from Wuhan also on the same flight, but neither of us was close enough to talk to him. What are the odds?

We finally landed in Wuhan around lunch time.  Other was one of those landings where they pull the stairs up to the plane, you disembark onto the runway, and then they bus you to the arrival gate. As I was still wearing flip-flops bad it was supposed to be only 43 (although sunny) in Wuhan, I was prepared to freeze, but I was pleasantly surprised that it didn't seem too cold at all.  Maybe it was the sunshine. I did, however, put on shoes after collecting my bag from baggage claim.  

One of the great things about running into Kristin was that we could split the fare of the rather expensive taxi home, since our campuses are so close. It was a good trip, but coming home is nice, too.

Passing the Time in Bangkok

The things we do to save money...when buying plane tickets for this trip, I found that getting a flight from Bali to Wuhan, which involves a connection in the middle, usually in Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur or occasionally Guangzhou, would cost more than four hundred dollars if I bought it from cheapoair or kayak, my current go-to sites.  The flights would be at convenient times and have a reasonable layover that would get me home in a day...but I really didn't want to spend that much.  I looked at Air Asia, the local discount airline, but it's primarily a point-to-point airline--there are only a few routes on which you can book connecting flights.  However, I could buy a ticket from Bali to Bangkok, and then a separate ticket from Bangkok on to Wuhan.  Together, they would be well under three hundred.  

Unfortunately, the times didn't line up too well.  The flight from Bali arrived in Bangkok at 3:00 in the afternoon, and the afternoon flight to Wuhan left at 3:50.  As I had to go through customs, and especially once I decided to check a bag that I would have to collect from baggage claim and recheck, the time was just too tight.  There's no way to make that flight.  However, there is also a morning flight, at 7:30...

So here I am.  I've spent the night in an airport before, and this probably won't be the last.   It ends up being about a sixteen hour layover; I've had worse.  And after all, I'm saving money...

I've been to this airport before, last summer for my flight down to Phuket.  I know there's a Subway and Krispy Kreme in here...but they are after security, on the way to the gates.  Sigh.  Why do they put the good stuff in there where you don't have too much time, and out here where I'm spending hours, it's nothing but fried and greasy versions of local food?  Oh well, something to look forward to.  I had dinner at one of the restaurants up on the balcony overlooking the check-in area.  Feeling a bit nostalgic for the Thai food I ate down south on Ko Phi Phi last summer, I ordered Shrimp with fried rice, and some spring rolls.  Now usually Thai food is good, but as I said this was the greasy version.  The shrimp weren't bad, really, but still one of those things that you know as you're eating it that you'll probably regret it.  

After eating (and before the dodgy shrimp took effect) I followed signs to an "observation deck."  It turned out to be an leftover hallway with some scattered seats, but it did have windows that overlooked one of the runways, and it was quieter up there than down in the main seating area. It was also a bit cold up there, with the air conditioning working a bit too well for once, but I figured that was probably good for me to start adjusting back to winter.  I sat and played games on my kindle and watched the planes take off until the sky turned pink and then black and the moon rose. 

Sunrise to Sunset and Then Some

I couldn't post while on the plane, obviously, so I'll revisit that experience just a moment here, before I dive into India.  

I've always enjoyed flying, but instead of getting more and more comfortable with it, it seems like I get more and more nervous these days...oh, not about flying itself, or crashes or that sort of thing, but about lost luggage and delays and bureaucratic issues.  Maybe it's just having more luggage, a tighter schedule, and more expensive tickets the older I get...I mean, it's hard to get worked up about a Ryanair flight that just cost three euro, carry on luggage only, and if it all goes wrong, you can always just take the train...

Anyways, I guess it was left over nerves from waiting until the last minute for my visa, but I kept expecting something to go wrong; some missed connection, something...but everything went like clockwork.  The only minor annoyance was that they charge 8 yuan for a bottle of tea in the Chengdu airport, which is highway robbery.  Oh, well.  I'd sure pay 8 yuan for one now; why isn't bottled iced tea available everywhere?  It always makes me appreciate China to travel elsewhere, and that's the thing I often miss the most--the bottled drinks are better in China than anywhere else (yes, including the U.S.).  Mango juice, peach juice, various teas, other fruit juices, plus all the normal stuff like Coke and Sprite. I've had a heart burn all day from drinking Pepsi.  I finally found a bottle of apple juice just now...I hope I can find more.  

Anyways, whining digression aside, the flight:  I flew out of Beijing at 8 AM, changed planes in Shanghai with an almost seven hour layover (but I much prefer long layovers to short ones; I hate being rushed)...another digression--I'd rather have spent the layover in the Beijing airport than the Shanghai one; the Shanghai one mostly has overpriced, overly fancy food, when I really just wanted something normal...okay, where was I?  Oh, yes.  Flight out of Shanghai at 4:55 PM, to Chengdu.  Now, it was the same plane from Shanghai to Mumbai, but even if we were going on, we still had to get off at Chengdu and walk through the customs thing and then get back on.  Anyhow, left Chengdu at some time or other (I'd lost track by then, and it's not on the  ticket since, officially, we were just "continuing" the flight) and arrived in Mumbai at 1 AM.  Despite the late hour, the airport was hopping; this is one of those cities that never sleeps.  

I found an ATM, and the taxi stand, and made my way to the Windsor Hotel (hostel).  The pillow is ridiculously small, and the showers are cold, but I'm overjoyed to have a mattress that doesn't feel like a piece of wood with a sheet on it (which is how the Chinese like it).  I might have mentioned all that in my last post, but I'm too lazy to go look right now.  Anyways, Mumbai.  I like it.  

As for the photos:  the first is the sunrise over a neighboring airplane as we boarded in Beijing; the second is the sunset as we took off from Chengdu.  

Beijing Airport...Still.

And here I am at my new home! Oh…wait…this is the Beijing airport…still. 

So, we had a tight layover in Beijing.  And our plane from L.A. was late getting in.  And we had to collect all our luggage and walk with it through customs.  And it’s a major capital city of a huge country airport, meaning correspondingly huge.  If any little thing goes, wrong we could miss this flight…

Well, of course it did.  Oddly enough, it was the first group of us who got our luggage who missed the flight.  Somehow, we missed the place where we were supposed to return out luggage for the flight to Wuhan, and ended up out in the main part of the terminal.  We went to the check-in desk, but were sent to another, then to the ticket counter.  Oh, and in the middle of this, we had a Chinese man trying to be helpful and leading us in circles.  The long and short of it is, nine of us missed the flight.  Those who had taken longer to get their luggage and were behind us did not go the wrong way and made it, go figure.  

There was another flight an hour later, but it only had one free seat. Kevin happened to be first in line, so he decided to try and run for it.  Apparently he made it, because he never came back; we waited in the same area for a good while just in case.  Unfortunately, there were no more flights after that until the next day.  We managed to change our tickets to one person at 12:30, three at 1:30, and the last four at 5:40.  By the time we finished all that, it was 7:00 pm.  So…eighteen and a half hours to go for me (1:30) and even longer for the last group.  Definitely qualified as longest layover I’ve ever had… To make it even more fun, we were stuck for the night, with all of our luggage. 

We piled all the luggage together around a group of three seats near the ticket counter; a few people stayed to guard it all while a few of us did some recon work.  Laura found that we could get passwords for the free airport wifi from the information booth.  Kelly and I went exploring downstairs for a better home base; we found a quieter bank of chairs with plenty for everyone, and also the hourly lounge, which had beds and showers.  In the end, we all cheaped out and stayed out of the lounge.  We set up home base on the last row of seats.  It turned out to be nice that there were so many of us; we could take turns guarding the luggage, sleeping, and wandering off to find food, shop, etc.  Samuel found a row of outlets around the corner, where we could recharge our laptops.  

Although no one was particularly excited at another night in an airport, we made the best of it.  I got to know teachers who would be at different schools, who I probably would never have made much connection with otherwise.  We played balderdash.  We ate some particularly unappetizing Burger King food (my last meal in the U.S. and my first meal in China were both Burger King…sigh; I’d hoped for at least a Taco Bell in L.A.), we sponge-bathed, we took exploratory walks, and skyped relatives.  We watched a group of window-washer rappel from the roof, cleaning the glass wall of the terminal as they swung back and forth. Finally, I got through to Ed, so he could inform those who were supposed to be picking us up our new arrival times; however, most of the schools were ahead of us and had already called the airport and got the information themselves.  Sigh, the things you can do if you speak Chinese… 

And finally, we did make it to Wuhan.  And all of our luggage made it with us.  And you know the funny part?  The group who made the original flight didn’t get their luggage until the next day—it waited to fly with us!  So, an adventure either way around. 

32000 feet from Alaska

According to the mapping program showing on the screen on the back of the seat in front of me, I’m 32000 feet over Alaska right now.  It’s interesting the routes that airplanes take due to the curve of the earth and wind currents and all; to get from L.A. to Beijing we flew up the coast, over Alaska, and then we’ll cross the Bering Strait and part of eastern Russia, then follow the Russian coast down into China to Beijing.  Several people have referred to this flight as ‘crossing the pacific’, but really we’re only over open water a minor part of the trip.  

Flight-themed songs keep popping into my head; I’m leaving on a jet plane, don’t know when I’ll be back again…right now you’re thirty thousand feet above me, I’m just out here watching the planes take off and fly…when the plane goes down, I’ll remember where the love was found…okay, maybe I shouldn’t sing that last one too much.  

I love these maps they do on long distance flights now; this is the best one I’ve ever seen.  It offers a variety of views: entire route, what’s outside the left side of the plane, what’s outside the right side of the plane, the cockpit view, the external view, overhead, 360°, and you can even set it to cycle between them.  I like knowing what we’re flying over, and how far we’ve come, and how many hours are left to go (exactly seven right now).

It’s a good thing I’ve got the map view, because I can’t see outside for sure.  This plane is set up with nine seats across, three three and three.  I’m in the aisle seat of the middle set, which is quite comfortable since there’s no one in the middle, giving us some space to stretch out.  I’d have to look over three people and an aisle to see the window, and then even if I do that, I’m over the wing, so all I can see is white metal.  And then, it’s apparently really bright out there because everyone has kept the windows firmly shut nearly the whole flight.  

I did have some good window experiences in my first two flights, though.  We took off from Nashville at 5:30 am flying south east; as we flew, the sky turned pink and then orange and then we watched a brilliant sunrise.  I slept the first part of the flight from Atlanta to Los Angeles, but when I woke up we were over the deserts of Arizona.  I saw canyons (not sure if I saw the Grand Canyon, but possibly), mountains, and what looked like salt flats displayed beneath me; I took quite a few pictures then as I had a window seat for once.  

It still doesn’t seem quite real that I’m passing the Bendeleben Mountains on the Alaskan coast (especially since I’d never heard of them before), and that in just a few hours I’ll finally be back in China. 

A Day in the Air

The most common question I get about moving to China is "How many hours is the flight?" Well, in fact, it takes four flights, but the total in-air time is looking like it'll be about twenty-one hours this time. 

I leave Nashville at 5:30 am Thursday morning--so of course I have the be at the airport a couple of hours before that.  Right now we're planning to go to my brothers' place in Nashville Wednesday evening, and then go from there, instead of going from here at two in the morning. 

My first flight is to Atlanta--yes, going the wrong direction.  I find it quite entertaining to search for flights sometimes; sometimes the routes seem so nonsensical.  The flight to Atlanta takes just over an hour, and then from Atlanta I fly to L.A. (about five hours), then from L.A. to Beijing (thirteen hours), then from Beijing to Wuhan (two and ten minutes, if I remember correctly).  None of my layovers are too long, so really we're making pretty good time.  I'll be meeting up with some of the other American teachers who I met in June in Nashville and L.A. 

When I arrive in Wuhan, it will be 9:00 pm Friday night.  This schedule may seem a bit crazy, but really it's pretty well designed--I won't get much if any sleep Wednesday night, so I should be able to sleep on the flight to L.A.  Therefore, I'll be awake flying into China, but tired and ready to sleep when I finally get to my apartment sometime Friday night.  I have to flip-flop my day and night due to the time zones anyhow, and it's easiest to do it in route like this. 

When I do tell people the flight plan, I get a lot of grimaces.  Twenty-one hours in the air?  You poor thing!  Why do people hate flying so much?  I love traveling and every part of it--I don't think I've eer been bored in an airport.  There's shops, restaurants, and of course endless people watching.  Besides, you have books, magazines, other travelers to talk to, and the view out the window of planes taking off and landing. On the long flight, there's usually so many movies I haven't seen yet that I can't fit them all in.  Even after all the flying I've done, air travel has not lost its magic.  I just love being on the move.   Now, if only airlines had a better record of getting luggage to the same place at the same time, flying would be perfect.  Please pray for my luggage. 

Flying over the lakes of Wuhan, February 2010