We're off!

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Geo: 51.4725, -0.491329

We're off!

Awake: 0400 hrs. A sudden desire to be able to open and edit Word files stored on my Drop Box account overwhelms me..... This will be a useful function on holiday me thinks. I spend the next hour trying to upgrade Word on my iPad....made even more tricky as I cannot see the tiny bolt on keypad attached to the device in the pitch black. I eventually upgraded all my cloud accounts to try and make it happen! Failure and disappointment as I kept getting asked for my school account password!! I eventually give up and look at Flight Radar. A lone BA 777 is coming in From Singapore...... its only 0445 and I am wide awake......

0750hrs We both have colds!!! Perfect timing.

We are being picked up from the Hotel at 0930hrs for the long ride to T3 - only 10 minutes away!!

1000hrs - Emirates Check In - only 3.30mins early.!
1030hrs - Security scare - back pack searched - and checked for explosives - worrying times.
1045hrs - We burst into The Emirates Lounge only to find breakfast buffet being cleared away - arggh! - Scraping remnants of scrambled eggs and halal sausages from the trolly, Cathy immediately manages to roll a sausage down her smart top within seconds!!! - ruined.

1100hrs - still trying to edit word documents using my iPad - failed.

1130hrs - IT ARRIVES - I feel like a schoolboy with a new Tonka Toy - The A380 800 - wow! Sorry got to go for a cold shower.........

1145 hrs: - Cathy spots a huge buffet lunch being laid out. King Prawns - smoked salmon - exotoc fruit - cheese - Arabic dips - Sadly, we've peaked on a late breakfast but force down a "token" King Prawn assemble.

1150hrs - Finally I can edit Word Documents on my iPad - Yeah!

1200hrs - Boarding in 45 mins -

1445hrs: Welcome aboard Sheik Abdullah Hillman! How can the Arab World be so full of contrasts. On one extreme, we have things going on in Iraq and Syria that would not be out of place in BC 350 and here we find the gentile sophisticated luxury of the Middle East. Why!? I only hope they can keep this going. Perhaps this is the last hurrah of the Western World as we know it and in 100 years time, we will be plunged back into the dark ages?

Hang on while I get off my "soap box" and settle back into the rarefied world of walnut veneer, Cartier Watches, Bulgari Aftershave in the aircraft loos and Stewardesses who look like Vogue models. Ryan Air or even Virgin Upper Class this ain't and for the next 7 hours followed by another 4.5 hours to Columbo we are in for a real treat. I have had years of being crammed into row 57 of an Air New Zealand jumbo en route to Auckland and this is a rare treat!

By contrast, a Boeing 747-400 tears down the runway with a rattle and shudder taking nearly 60 seconds to rotate. The much larger A380 literally purrs it's way into the air with barely a murmur coming from the 4 Rolls Royce Trent engines, each with the diameter of a Boeing 737 and more thrust than Tom Jones in 1967!!

STATUS REPORT 1445: A nasty bout of turbulence strikes! My god if we were in a small plane it would be awful. We are being buffeted about and trust me it takes some doing with a plane this size. If you are reading this please make sure Monty is looked after.............we have set up an account in his name.........its been nice....

I think the worst is over as the purser is introducing herself to us. Her name is Helen and I think I might retrain as a steward and join Emirates............

Only 3 hours to Dubai and I am snoozing off a large Bombay Sapphire, Champagne, an Arabic Meze, 4 glasses of Tuscan Red, Prawn machbous, a rack of rare hand reared cheeses, Finest Godiva Chocs and a great Bollywood Film from 1980.......loads of dancing - fighting and extras in flared brown trousers!! Burp....

With Creedence Clearwater Revival playing "have you ever seen the rain" in my headphones we truck onto our destination at 39,000 feet and at 960 kph......fancy a quick peep downstairs?...there are over 350 souls peddling hard to keep the Champagne cool. We are near
Basra (eeek) and only 1hr 57 till we land. Just enough time to watch another film...the well known Tamil Classic - Endrendrum Punnagai.....

LANDING WORRIES! We have a nose cone camera - for about 1 hour I have been scanning the horizon for the sight of the runway. Nothing apart from small lights from boats. Eventually, I spot the bright lights of Dubai City and an aircraft in front.....phew. Then without warning we turn back towards the sea......have we been hi-jacked? At least we will go in comfort. Then something looking like the Hook Road Car park appears and were a making for it! All is well as we make a smooth landing and head for Gate 9.

UNDERWHELMED: Dubai Airport if full of tourists heading back to Gatwick South Terminal after a week roasting in the 40C heat. They clutch straw camels, duty free blue fizzy "voddy" and "ciggys". Huge queues await us at the hand luggage scan. Cathy squeaks that we have priority fast track passes.....they count for nothing as we join a line of championship bingo players on they way back to Manchester. To quote the man in front " you can waive those passes all you like..they count for nothing....lass.

0200hrs Locat Time: We board the Boeing 777 - 300ER to Columbo some 4 hours away. Our stewardess Fatima is from Morocco. At once, I impress her with my in depth and incisive knowledge of her home country.....

0840 Local (Sri Lankan) - we touch down in the early morning mist. It's overcast and slightly drizzly but 27C. Our guide for the next few days greets us and 45 mins later we are crashed out in our Columbo Hotel.......its been a long day!

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