A business travel diary

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It’s the day before I leave. All the preparations are made. I’ve just got to spend this afternoon in the office with a visitor, and then tomorrow at 1400 I’ll board Emirates for my 8-hour flight to Dubai. I’m travelling in economy. No great problem, it’s Emirates, which (so far), seems a fantastic airline, but later in the trip I’m with the (possibly) dodgy Iran Air, who operate a fleet of Boeings, but apparently can’t get spare parts from the Americans. Later still, I’m with an Indian airline called Sahara Airlines. It seems a strange name for an Indian airline; but then navigation might not be their strongest suit.

I have my currency after being ripped off by a well-known credit card company, and I have my Visas (for Iran and India) after being ripped off by the respective consulates and the company who handled the visa application. The Iranian visa took 10 days to obtain, and the Indian one, 2 days. Still, I bet it’s a damm sight harder for Iranians and Indians to get visas to visit here. And if you wonder why some countries make immigration a nightmare at the airport, it’s their revenge for the days of Empire. So when you’re standing in a sweltering queue, in a fetid slum of an airport, while some greaseball looks at your passport as if it was infected with bubonic plague, just remember that you’re paying for all those years of bossing them around, pillaging their country, and then redesigning their borders with the aid of a ruler and some hallucinogenic drugs.

I’ve done my shopping, and as usual, my wife has performed wonders with washing and ironing to get me scrubbed, spruced and set for the journey. My case is (almost) packed and just about the only decision left is which DVD’s to take. It’s great having the laptop and DVD movies, but it’s a heavy burden. OK, it’s only 3.5 Kgs but I swear the laptop gets heavier every day when I’m on the road. Must nag my boss for a smaller, lighter one.

I’ve been in Dubai before and I like the place. It hovers somewhere between European quality, and Las Vegas excess. It is really in a spot that is entirely it’s own. Virtually no crime, ultra-modern glass-walled buildings glowering at the old low-rise city, camel farms in the countryside, and Ferraris, Mercedes, Rollers and BMW’s, all whizzing around in a mad dash to get even more rich.

This is my first trip in summer and it’s going to be 40 degrees plus. A bit like being micro waved I suppose. Just point me to the air-conditioning!

Iran will be fascinating and mercifully, a bit cooler. I have been warned to prepare to eat, a lot.

India? Well it’s India isn’t it? It will be an experience for sure.





Dubai
The flight to Dubai was uneventful. I was sitting beside a rather beautiful Pakistani girl on her way to Karachi to see her family. She was 6 months married and 5 months pregnant, and her main topic of conversation was about how her husband is out all the time and she’s very lonely. Eventually she dozed off and I had some peace.

The Towers Rotana Hotel in Dubai is situated on Sheik Zayed Road, home to some of the most spectacular architecture in Dubai. I find it rather reminiscent of the strip in Las Vegas. Maybe it’s the newness, or maybe it’s the sheer gobsmackingness that invites the comparison. Even allowing for it being ultra modern, it is quite unengaging.

Fantastic service, food and hospitality from the Filipino staff at the Rotana. Room OK and the air-conditioning is mercifully effective. The temperature outside is 40+ and with the humidity and wind, it’s like a furnace. Much, much too hot for me, and watching the labourers on the construction sites toil in the baking heat, I am fleetingly grateful for my cold damp country, and for my comfortable life.

My meetings all went fairly well. My current customers are all moaning about something or other, and when I’m talking to the prospective new customers, I can’t help wondering how long it will be before they’re moaning too. It’s a bit like meeting a new girlfriend and wondering all through the first date how the relationship will end. Good dinner at the Irish Village. Bless my distributor, he thinks that I would travel all the way to Dubai and then want to drink Caffreys and eat steak pie. Still, for him the Irish Village is cool, so I humour him, and steer him into a super Spanish/Portuguese/Mexican restaurant where we eat royally and I hoover up the wine because he’s driving.

Tehran
Arrived in Tehran at 00.30. There is a 30-minute time difference from Dubai. I am surprised, I thought that time zones went only in blocks of one hour, but apparently, they do it differently here.

Tehran airport is OK, we’re the only flight (Iran Air, and it was fine), coming in at that time, and there are no queues at immigration. The airport is very 70’s, reminiscent of Sheremetyevo in Moscow in it’s ugliness. It’s the 1970’s self-assembly airport kit. Apparently a new airport has been built, but because they can’t (or won’t) let foreigners operate it, the new airport stands idle.

The taxi ride to the hotel is without incident (unusual in Tehran traffic) and The Simorgh is an extremely comfortable and friendly hotel. At breakfast I am asked three times by three different waiters, where do I come from, and what are my impressions of Iran. I have to tell them that I arrived last night in the dark, and now it’s only 7.30am, but, “so far so good”. It clearly matters to them what the outside world thinks of their country.

I walk out of the hotel and into the street. My first thought is that it’s exactly like a very stylish boulevard in Barcelona. Wide street, constant traffic, trees lining each side, and cars, parked, no, make that abandoned, on the pavement. The hotel is on a slope and in an open culvert, between the pavement and the road, is a fast flowing stream, skipping and bubbling down the hill. I take a walk up the hill and look at the shops, some of which are as grand as any in Europe. No pubs of course, but lots of restaurants and some interesting nut shops, where the Tehranis indulge their passion for pistachios, walnuts, almonds and the like.

Looking down the hill I can see towards the city centre and the pall of pollution that hangs drowsily over downtown. Apparently there are somewhere between 7 and 10 million people in Tehran, and judging from the traffic, every family has two cars. Driving standards are appalling. There must be an Iranian driving test, but I imagine that it’s just a case of counting limbs, and if they add up to an even number, that’s it, you’re on the road.

My meetings in Tehran go well. Very kind and hospitable people, and I learn my first bit of Farsi, which enables me to tell people I meet, that I don’t speak Farsi. Lunch is in the boss’s office. Salad, Iranian bread, chicken kebab and meat kebab, soaked with freshly squeezed lemon juice and washed down with a cheeky little non-alcoholic beer. It was just the job. Keep me going till dinner at least.

The Iranians I meet impress me with their openness, friendliness and passion for business. The young people are highly educated and equally highly motivated. There appears to be no dominance of women by men, and the girls speak freely and forcefully at the discussion table. They are trying very hard to adopt world class practices in Marketing, Production and Sales, but they are hugely frustrated by a stifling Iranian bureaucracy, and the great difficulties in operating freely in an international environment dominated by America, in which Iran is viewed with suspicion and mistrust. I reckon that if you could take the shackles off this country, it would explode in development.

Still, development is happening here and now, and is hopefully unstoppable. Once the door is opened a bit, give or take a generation, the desire for change that drove the Shah from power, may again find expression with the young of Iran, and bring their country, finally, into the family of prosperous nations.

My last night in Tehran was exciting. I was with our distributor in a very plush Chinese restaurant, when suddenly the lights flickered, went out, flickered again and then from above our heads, a fizzing and crackling sound preceded a flow of burning plastic from the light fittings.

Within minutes the restaurant staff were in headless chicken mode, while Dave and I continued to munch our way through dinner. I only decided to leave after a waiter came to our table and indicated that the restaurant was “CLOSED CLOSED”. Dave however, elected not to join me, and only emerged 5 minutes later when breathing became difficult. It did make me think when he immediately lit a cigarette, that it was probably healthier for him in the restaurant.

Once the fire brigade, the salvage people, and the machine gun toting police arrived, the show was all but over, so Dave and I decided to walk back to my hotel. We hadn’t gone more than 100 metres when we heard an almighty bang and we turned round to see a motor cyclist and his bike slide across the road, while the driver who had hit him, swerved across the dual carriageway and roared off into the night.

My main memories of Tehran, apart from the maniacal traffic and the exploding Chinese Restaurant, will be of a bustling, vibrant city, with beautiful parks, interesting buildings and a complete absence of bars. I could get used to it. At least I would lose weight.

I’m writing this on my flight to Mumbai on Iran Air. This time, I have to say that the meal was disgusting. I made a fundamental mistake and chose beef instead of chicken. What they gave me may once have been beef, but I think that it had possibly been sent a couple of times around a particle accelerator before it arrived on my tray. Never mind, there will be 24-hour room service at Le Meridien in Mumbai.

I have read somewhere that Mumbai Airport is one of the worst, if not the worst, in the world,


Mumbai

Well, the airport was a doddle. Once I had figured out the arrival form, I was swiftly through immigration and I had no hassles with luggage retrieval or Customs. OK the airport is not exactly fragrant, and I can imagine it’s bedlam at peak times, but for this trip anyway, it was fine.

I’m staying at Le Meridien near to the airport, on a special promotional rate that includes airport pick up. It’s great to have the car and driver ready and waiting, well worth any extra that it costs.

The hotel is not much more than a five-minute drive from the terminal so it’s difficult to get any impression of the city. The hotel interior is very impressive and I am particularly struck by the lighting, which is a combination of lamps, hundreds of small spots and beautiful candles, all combining to make a magical atmosphere. After dry Tehran, I enjoy a beer or two and a light meal in the Chinese restaurant. Good, but a bit expensive for food that is just “good”

I’ve been upgraded to a clubroom, which is extremely comfortable. I do the usual scan of the toiletries, to decide which to use, and which to put in the case to take home. Then I watch a bit of English footy on TV and it’s off to sleep.

In the morning I opened the shutters to a very interesting view. Directly below my window is the hotel swimming pool, surrounded by the usual comfortable loungers and a conveniently situated bar, so we don’t have to wait too long for that cooling drink. The pool sits in the immaculate hotel gardens, surrounded by a high wall and patrolled by security. Over the wall is a swampy area and just beyond that, a filthy tumbledown collection of shacks made from corrugated materials, odd bits of wood and tarpaulins.

I have travelled a bit and I have seen poverty before. Whether it is the dreadful gipsy encampments of Eastern Europe, or the shantytowns of Africa, I am always affected by seeing such conditions, and in the contrast with my own cushy and privileged existence. There surely can be no shortage of resources in the world to eradicate this, we lack only the will.

Having now seen the hotel in daylight, it’s not quite the enchanting place that it is by candlelight, but still very comfortable. I have breakfast in my room and wonder who thinks that hot milk is what to serve with cornflakes?

There you are, isn’t that just typical? I’m worried about the temperature of my milk, and 200 metres away, there are people locked in a life or death struggle against poverty and disease.

New Delhi
My flight to New Delhi with Sahara Airlines is excellent. Trusty old 737-300, friendly attentive service from the young enthusiastic crew (European airlines take note) and passable food. Not bad at all.

As it’s a domestic service, I am through the terminal in next to no time, and the driver from the Taj Palace Hotel is there to meet me, resplendent in his peaked cap and uniform. It’s rather like being met by a Latin American dictator, but hey, I’m not complaining, as he grabs my luggage and parks me outside the terminal building while he goes off to pick up the car from the parking lot.

As I stand there, sweltering in the heat, I become aware of a small man hovering close by, and taking a very keen interest in my briefcase. Now, despite the fact that I am directly outside the terminal, and surrounded by armed policemen, I conclude that this bloke is about to make a grab for my case. So, utilising all my carefully honed multi-cultural communication skills, I decide to pre-empt the coming assault and ask, “You got a problem?” Now, in my hometown, that would provoke a serious reaction, but all I get is a shrug, something unintelligible in the local lingo, and another longing look at my case. At that point the limo pulls up and as I go to put my case in the trunk, the small man jumps forward to help me carry it. “Get lost” I tell him, and shove the bag in the car and jump in the back. Poor fella, he probably waits there all day, just for the opportunity to carry bags 5 metres for a few rupees, and I’m so paranoid about my possessions that I treated him quite badly. I don’t feel too good about this as my Mercedes pulls away and he stretches his upturned palm to my window.

We purr through the New Delhi traffic, and I gaze out at the heart-rending scenes of poverty all around. Then I have an idea. On the way back to the airport, I’ll get the driver to stop and I will give some poor person all of the rupees that I have left. For whoever gets the dosh, it will be like a lotteries win. But, is it the right thing to do? Should I instead give it to an established charity because they know best? Will I insult the person, or is such poverty so dire, that the people are beyond insult? I resolve to think about it and decide later.

The Taj Palace hotel is not the prettiest building I have ever seen, but inside it is spacious and comfortable. I have a “Taj Club” room on the eighth floor with a splendid view of the city and some interesting extra benefits including a “happy hour” from 6.30 till 8, with free drinks in the lounge, thus enabling me to get pleasantly tight without adding to the bill.

The service is impeccable. I’m sure that they employ people just to stand around, look smart, and say “good morning”, “good afternoon”, “can I help you sir”, and “have a nice day”. And don’t even think about trying to open a door yourself, once you are within 3 feet of a door, a man will instantly appear on a skyhook and open it for you.

The Masala Restaurant on the ground floor serves magnificent Indian food (note, here they just call it food) and the service is as usual in Asia, perfect. After dinner I meet up with a young couple from Tipperary who are at the end of a 2-week holiday and have been disturbed by the poverty they have seen. It was an interesting topic of conversation as we sat drinking single malt in air-conditioned luxury.

I had a minor panic when my travel agent called to say that my onward flight to Kuwait should have been re-confirmed 72 hours earlier, and that my reservation was now cancelled and the flight was full. Full marks therefore to the travel desk at The Taj who sorted it out with no fuss and even re-confirmed all of my other flights.

I reflect that business travel is travel in a protective capsule. The capsule is made up of air-conditioning, credit cards, taxis, international hotels, airline lounges and so on. We can exist entirely within this capsule and only if we choose to do so, do we have to make any contact with the country and it’s people.

Later today I have a meeting at The British High Commission and I plan to take one of the old Austin type taxis that are ubiquitous here. Should be interesting.

The old car is interesting sure enough, but also slow and uncomfortable. I strike up a conversation with the driver and I tell him where I have come from. He tells me that it’s his dream to visit the UK, but, and it’s a pretty big but, if he doesn’t drive a taxi each day, his family won’t eat. I make a weak joke about holiday pay and pay him double the 70 rupees that he asked for. Later, I wish I had given him 500 rupees and told him to treat the family.

The British High Commission is a low-rise building, set back from the road in lush and beautifully manicured gardens. Security is tight and I notice the wicked looking Kukris worn by the Ghurkha soldiers manning the main gate. First I am relieved of my camera, and then my entire briefcase is claimed at the main reception, leaving me with just a pad and pen. Who needs more anyway?

The meeting goes pretty much as expected. The trade representative is bright and articulate with perfect English. He’s also pretty underwhelmed by the rather boring products that we sell. Give him some cutting edge software development or a mammoth dam project and I think he might get excited, but what we have just seems to be a big yawn for him

When we finish our meeting he very kindly invites me to lunch in The High Commission restaurant and I am struck dumb by the menu. Fish and Chips, Baked Beans on Toast, and Steak Pie, are some of the delights on offer. The only concession to the fact that we’re in Delhi is the daily special, which amazingly, is Chicken Curry.

Back at the hotel I treat myself to a massage and then after a quick whiz around the rather good nine-hole putting green, I order a large Black Label out on the terrace, and watch a magnificent sunset.

Later in the evening, The Masala restaurant serves up another magnificent meal and I get off to bed early at 9 because I have to be up at 3 for my flight at 6. It doesn’t work of course and I’m awake at midnight watching Manchester United. I wish someone would show Fergie how to chew with his mouth closed, it can’t be too difficult. No more sleep for me now until the flight to Kuwait.

My early morning checkout is handled very efficiently and my Mercedes whisks me off to the airport through the monsoon rains. I have enjoyed my stay at the Taj and I would certainly come back, even although the food and drink is absurdly overpriced. However, the service is impeccable and the young staff are bright and enthusiastic, rooms are comfortable and the food is superb.

New Delhi Airport at 3.30 am is bedlam. Sometimes I am fortunate and travel in Business Class. Sometimes, like on this trip, I travel in Economy. At this moment, as I wait in a chaotic check-in queue for almost an hour, surrounded by a mass of people, some of whom have life-threatening BO, I long for business class check-in and a comfortable lounge. Really airlines, keep the champagne and canapés, just get me through this nightmare as quickly as possible and park me in a peaceful corner until it’s time to fly. Then I’m a happy camper.

The security is very dense at Delhi airport, yes, that’s the right word, dense. Check after check after check, boarding card stamped, signed, stamped again, signed, eyeballed, bag searched, searched again. There’s even a man with an assault rifle at the x-ray machine. Presumably they shoot anyone who gets that far and still looks a bit dodgy. Helpfully, there’s a printed notice on the wall advising us of certain categories of persons who are exempt from security checks. They include,

President (of the country)
Vice-President
Prime Minister

I looked for Export Sales Director, but I think they forgot to put it on.

My flight is with Kuwait Airlines in a rather spiffing Airbus 300. As I board I curse myself for not asking for an aisle, however when I get to to my seat, it’s an emergency exit row with the aircraft equivalent of a football field in front. Mustn’t sleep too early mind. I don’t want to be nodding off just as the food service starts.

I’m writing this in longhand (no room for the laptop) and it occurs to me that I have only a couple more entries to make, and the journal will end when I get home. I have truly enjoyed this experience of keeping a diary, and it hasn’t been a chore at all. I hope that it’s not too tedious to read either. I have also noticed that I have become much more observant as I consider what would be interesting or funny to report. I hope too, that it has caused me to be a bit more thoughtful about what I experience, because I know that it has to be remembered, interpreted in some way and then described for my reader.

I’m on Kuwait Airways to Kuwait and my frantic scribbling must have made an impression on the Cabin Services Director who has just come to my seat and asked me if I am “comfortable with my business”. With a seasoned traveller’s nose for an upgrade, I lie that I would like to use my laptop, so he offers to move me to a better seat, and sure enough, a few minutes later, I’m up in Business Class, much to the chagrin of all around me in economy.

The Kuwait Airways Economy Class meal was rubbish. Airlines, if you can’t produce proper scrambled eggs, then don’t bother trying, and forget the dried up muck that you offer instead. My scrambled eggs may have had a chicken as a pen pal but that was the closest relationship it had.

Apart from 40-degree heat, I don’t quite know what to expect in Kuwait. I just have a memory of the big towers with the bulbous tops that were always shown when the Iraqis invaded. It’s dry, so no booze, but that’s not a bad thing. I’m here for two days but if I can work it, I’m going to leave early. Watch this space!

Kuwait
Approaching Kuwait by air, I have a magnificent view of the city and the Persian Gulf shimmering in the morning heat. The city is far from beautiful and it reminds me of the silhouetted cites that you had to protect in Missile Command. It looks as if a few bombs got through to this one. On the ground however, it’s not quite so bad, with several very attractive new buildings, but clearly there’s no great planning process and buildings are randomly dotted around as if they’ve been jumbled up and thrown out of a bag.

I am met at the airport by a gruff, unsmiling man from the Carlton Towers Hotel. There’s a nice air-conditioned people carrier that takes me directly to the hotel, however as we pull up outside, I experience a sense of foreboding, as I view the seedy surroundings and the grubby facade. My customer booked the hotel and it was the hotel that arranged my Visa. Hopefully it will be OK.

Inside the reception it’s not too bad, the clerk takes my passport and visa, “for registration Mr. Eric” and hands me a cheap yellow plastic key fob with the room key attached. The lift is shabby and smells, but I push on to the 7th floor in the expectation that the room, as sometimes is the case, will belie the public areas, and turn out to be OK.

As I get off at my floor it’s the smell that I notice first, somewhere between drains and urine with notes of dung. Jilly and Oz would have a field day. The paintwork has all turned yellow, the carpets are threadbare and there is a sense of dirt and decay. The room is a pit. Notionally a suite, it has a manky couch and chairs, and then behind an unpainted plywood partition lies the bed, and through an adjoining door, the bathroom. The bath is ancient and stained, and the crumpled rubber hose that feeds the showerhead, snakes charmingly past the filthy and cracked window.

OK, I think, I’ve been in this situation before. Go downstairs, tell them politely but firmly that I don’t like the room or the hotel, offer to pay for the airport pick-up and organising my visa, and then go somewhere else. First, just to be safe, I cross the street to a nearby J. W. Marriot and enquire about rooms. It’s ferociously expensive for that particular Marriot but there’s a Marriot Courtyard a few minutes drive away and I can have a room there at a reasonable cost.

Then I go back to the Carlton Towers to tackle the problem. Bear in mind now, that I have travelled all night, had no sleep, and I’m alone in a strange city. Not only that, but the enemy have got my passport and the situation is further complicated by the fact that the hotel arranged my visa.

The conversation back at the C.T. then goes something like this.

Me: “Excuse me, I am not happy with my room or with this hotel, I will pay you for the visa and for the pick up, then please make up my bill and I’ll go”

Enemy: “Sorry Sir, you must wait till 10 o’clock (it’s now 8.30) when the manager comes in”

Me: “No, I am sorry, I wish to leave now, please give me my documents” (See, still polite but firm, Johnny Foreigner will soon get the message)

Enemy: I am sorry Sir, I cannot give you your passport. We are your sponsor here in Kuwait and you must remain here to speak to the manager at 10 o’clock” (Stupid Scotsman, why doesn’t he bog off?)

Me: “Can’t you call the manager and I’ll speak to him”?

Enemy: “No Sir” (“Sir” now sounding like a foul insult)

Me: “Why not”? (Now sounding like a threat)

Enemy: “I do not have the right” (Naff off, Scots git)

Me: “What, you don’t have the right to talk to your manager”? (Unhelpful pratt)

Enemy: “No Sir” (Get lost)

Me: “Then I’ll talk to him” (I’ll sort you out mate)

Enemy: “Sir, I cannot call him” (Are you deaf?)

Me: “Why not”? (I’ll send a gunboat)

Enemy: “He may still be in bed” (May as well talk crap, he’s not listening anyway)

Me: (Getting ratty now), “I don’t care, I’ve been awake all bloody night, and now you’ve taken me as a hostage, get his number, and I’ll speak to him”. (Going nuclear)

Enemy: “Sir, please calm down, I cannot do that, he will be here at 10 o’clock” (I’ve got a shelter)

Me: No sorry, call him now” (I’ll tell my mom!)

Enemy: “No Sir, I do not have the right” (Want to start again, Scottish pig-dog?)

And so it goes on. Finally, after contacting my customer, who is a former member of the Kuwaiti parliament and is exceptionally well connected, the enemy is forced into a tactical retreat, and a compromise is reached. I will pay the full bill, including the room, and my passport will be returned immediately. I leave uttering dark threats about writing to the Kuwaiti authorities and knowing that I’ve been done over good style! My company will cover the cost but I’m very angry.

It’s a complete contrast at the Marriot Courtyard, which is brand new and sparkly. I tell my tale of woe to the girl on reception, who takes pity and gives me a fantastic rate. Things are looking up already.

Our business meeting is over quite quickly and we go to lunch at The Kuwait Towers, which look like two giant golf balls skewered on a two huge cocktail sticks. The lunch is buffet style and very tasty, especially the lamb, and afterwards we go upstairs for the magnificent views across the city and the Gulf.

During our lunch, I hear horrific tales of the Iraqi occupation, which lasted for 7 months and has left a legacy of hatred of all things Iraqi, not just of Saddam. In the Kuwait Towers there is a photographic display of the destruction wreaked by the invaders, and it’s clear to see what a traumatic experience it must have been. After lunch I am treated to a drive around the city but I’m so tired after my overnight flight that I have to apologise for falling asleep as my customer drones on about the architecture.

Tonight we’re going out to do some store visits and then I have been invited to a family dinner at the home of my Kuwaiti customer. I’m still so tired that I wish I was staying in the hotel and going to bed. At least I’ve been able to change my flight and I leave for Dubai early tomorrow morning instead of tomorrow evening.

After visiting a few dreary stores around Kuwait City, where it’s clear that our competitors are miles ahead of us in “Arabising” the presentation of their products, we finally arrive at the home of our Kuwaiti agent, and I am ushered into a long beautifully furnished room, where around 15 Kuwaitis are sitting, all dressed in the flowing white robes and headdresses that are the badges of wealthy Kuwaitis.

My host is grace and charm personified as he introduces me to my fellow guests. Some are his immediate family and a few are old school friends. Amongst others there’s a doctor, a director of Kuwait Airways (must tell him about the eggs), a high court judge, a professor of engineering, a doctor of computer science, and me, four O levels and a Higher.

The evening is anything but formal, they may be some of the luminaries of Kuwait and the robes may be a bit off putting at first, but it’s just a boys night out, and even through the Arabic, I recognise the wind-ups and gentle ribbing that goes on. I get into conversation with a man who just survived a dreadful car crash and multiple injuries. He has been in re-hab for six and a half months and will never work again.

The food is brought in and set out on a long narrow cloth on the floor. Then the guests, all except me and the crash survivor who can’t get around too well, sit cross-legged on the floor and get stuck into roast lamb, koftas, rice, breads and a scrummy selection of sauces. As all of this is going on and my new friend and I are eating at a table, I notice that the Indian employee of our distributor, who is my main contact and has been driving me around all day, is sitting apart from the diners and keeping his mouth firmly shut. It seems to be the way in Kuwait that there is little social interaction between the Kuwaitis who own the wealth, and the army of Indians, Pakistanis and Filipinos who earn it for them, and who are disparagingly referred to as “the labour”

I stay as long as I have to, to be polite, and then make for the hotel and a much needed nights sleep.

In the morning I am up bright eyed and bushy-tailed, and I have a very nice limo to take me to the airport. I share breakfast time in the impressive atrium of the Marriot with a British Airways crew, including two extremely camp stewards, who have just arrived and are having breakfast before going to bed. I know how difficult I find it to sleep during the day when the body needs rest, but the brain is sticking doggedly to the “it’s daylight, get up” routine. So I have a brief sympathy pang for long haul cabin crew who must have their body clocks turned into semolina after a few sectors.

Kuwait airport is like many others around the world, a multi-million dollar retail “experience” together with scabby toilets and an under resourced and cramped check in area. Like all airports in the region it is a glimpse across many peoples and cultures. Kuwaitis in the white robes, Saudis with the typical red headdresses, others with dinky white caps, and of course the very elegant Arab women, all in black with their face coverings revealing only a pair of dark and mysterious eyes. At least that’s most of the women, I exempt those who have the face covering and then put on a pair of ridiculous big round glasses, which makes them look rather like a soldier in a gas mask, peering out of a slit trench.

Dubai
I’m on the last leg now and this is almost my last entry. It was an excellent flight from Kuwait to Dubai, and I had a very interesting conversation with an Indian gentleman who is currently a Purchasing Manager in Kuwait, and who was travelling to the Canadian Embassy in Abu Dhabi to finalise a visa to take his family to Canada. Oh to be young and have such opportunity.

Travel is a humanity lucky dip. You never know who you will meet, where they’re going or why, and I think that’s why I love it so much. I have previously met politicians, professors, millionaires, soldiers, diplomats and even a man who owned a company that made the string for teabags. Meeting people in this way is a life enhancing experience.

Le Meridien at Dubai airport is a 3 out of 10 by Dubai standards. I forgot to order a non-smoking room and the first room they give me smells very badly. But it’s no problem for the charming Filipino staff who change the room in an instant. As it’s only 1410, I’m off for a beer or three. I notice that there’s a Chinese Restaurant here so I may give it a go later.

In the end I didn’t eat Chinese, just a burger in the brasserie, but it was excellent. I see that there is live music at Jules Bar in the hotel so I head for there to hear a really superb Chinese band who make me wish I was gigging again. Too many wines later and it’s 2am when I hit the sack. I have to get up at five for my flight but it doesn’t matter, I’m on the last leg and quite relaxed.

My Emirates flight is direct to Glasgow. As soon as I board I get under the blanket, take my shoes off and fall immediately asleep. First I am woken and asked to put my shoes on again, not because my feet are smelly, but because I am in the emergency exit seat. I pretend to be very grumpy, put on my shoes and nod off again. Then I’m woken once more, this time to bring my seat up from the 5 millimetres that it’s reclined. Now I’m not pretending and I briefly consider committing murder. Naturally, after we take off, I find it impossible to sleep.

I’m sitting beside a man who works in the software business and has been out to Australia just for one day. Apparently his sense of humour has been surgically removed and so I soon lose interest in talking to him. I notice that the person sitting across the aisle from me has a welcome pack from Glasgow’s Strathclyde University. He sees me taking an interest and explains that he is coming to Glasgow from Pakistan to study for a year. He has never been to Scotland and knows no one in the city. He asks for directions to his halls of residence and I offer to drive him. Well, to have my wife, who’s kindly picking me up, drive him. It’s nice to be nice and I would like to think that his stay in Glasgow has immediately been marked by friendliness and helpfulness. He’ll probably get mugged tonight!

Home
Well, that’s it. I’m home, the trip is behind me and I can think about the next one, which will be Prague and Belgrade. I don’t know if I will continue with the diary, probably I will, because I have found writing each day to be very therapeutic. In future I must get my tenses sorted out and try to write in slightly longer and more complex sentences. I could also try to be a bit funnier but I need more practice and I’m sure that the style I am looking for will come eventually.

Thanks for reading all this. You can go and lie down now.

If you’re wondering if I did or didn’t give all of my excess rupees to a poor person, that I’m very ashamed to say that I brought them home with me. My fight against third world poverty will have to wait till next time.

One week later.

I’m glad to be back at my diary, which has begun to feel like an old friend that I can confide in and moan and groan to my heart’s content, without ever feeling that he’s fed up.

My week back at work was a real drag, but I’m looking forward now to another trip next week, and it’s all going down in the diary again. This will be a slightly less exotic trip than last time. I’m going Glasgow-London-Prague-Vienna-Ljubljana-Vienna-Prague-Belgrade-London-Glasgow……..whew! That’s nine flights in 4 days, an organisational test for me and a test of almost everything for the various airlines that will have the dubious pleasure of my company.

It’s not too early a start for this trip and once again, my wife has kindly dropped me at the airport after braving the rush hour traffic. I’m flying on BA and it’s some time since I experienced their service. For several years I had a BA gold card but the demands of budget cuts and the proliferation of the low cost carriers put an end to that fur-lined mode of travel.

The flight to London is in a smart 737-500 and the food and service is excellent, albeit with a rather plumy voiced Cabin Services Director who advises us to “fossen” our seatbelts on our take off from “Glossgow”. I have always felt that British Airways culture is a bit of a hangover from the days of Empire, part civil service, public school, upper class travel club for young ladies and gentlemen. I’m sure that given half a chance, they would make the Scottish passengers sit in the hold with a can of Irn-Bru and a pudding supper.

At Gatwick I spot a truly beautiful black girl having great difficulty with an extremely heavy bag. Gallant as ever, I offer to help, and I discover that she has come from Sierre Leone and is on her way to Prague for a four year medical course. She’s very nervous and apprehensive about being in a strange city, and having no friends there, so I lie that the Czechs are a warm and fun loving people, and that she’ll soon make friends in Prague. It’s just as well that she brought along a few members of her family in the bag that I’m now struggling to carry.

It’s slightly more than one-hour delay to the Prague flight, but the passengers are stoical as ever and nobody complains. It amazes me how docile and failure tolerant we have become about air travel. The airlines in their greed, cram more and more services into overcrowded airports and skies. The service gets poorer day by day, the queues get longer, delays are seemingly written into the system, and yet we accept it all as part of the stresses and strains of modern life, and we forget about the inconvenience. (And don’t get me started about lost baggage!)

The BA service to Prague is excellent, food is good and I allow myself a gin and tonic. I find it impossible to sleep on most flights and this one is no exception, so I bury myself in The Economist and wish that I could absorb all the wisdom in that publication without the chore of having to read it.

At Prague airport I help my new Sierre Leonean friend to get the airport mini-bus and then, feeling like I’ve been a very Good Samaritan, I head off through security to the gate for my next flight to Vienna.

To Vienna in a Dash 8 and then briefly through the airport and onto a svelte Canadair jet from Adria Airways for the trip to Ljubljana. The Tyrolean flight to Vienna was good and the business class service excellent. I wonder however about cabin crew on Germanic airlines such as Tyrolean. They are the least happy cabin crew that you can expect to meet; maybe their wages are docked for smiling.

As ordered, my car awaits to take me to the hotel. It’s €30.00 for about 20 kilometres which isn’t bad, although the driver is a bit of a fiend, and hurtles me into Ljubljana at well over 100 mph. It’s dark so I have little impression of the city, but in the distance I can see the outlines of mountains in the moonlight.

The hotel is a bit of a hoot. In it’s promotional literature it calls itself “the most technologically advanced hotel in the world”, so I anticipate being unable to get into my room, a completely mystifying lighting system, and no doubt an unfathomable shower to contend with in the morning.

Actually it’s not too bad although I was unable to get into my room at the first attempt and no amount of keying my PIN number into the LCD screen outside my door seemed to help. Eventually I realised that I was trying to get into the wrong room and that solved that particular problem.

The hotel is big on screens, they’re everywhere around the hotel, and in the restaurant there are two very large ones, each showing a promotional video about Slovenia. Mercifully the sound is turned off, but there are English language subtitles which at one point helpfully inform me that “human knowledge is perforated” as I watch a bearded man trying to look interesting as he walks along a beach. God knows what it’s all about. Pretty soon I’m perforated too and it’s time to go to bed.

My meetings next day are out of town and I have a beautiful view of the mountains that surround Ljubljana as I am driven out of the city. I can see aircraft taking off and landing at the airport, and both look decidedly challenging with the mountains in such close proximity. Best not to think too much about that I suppose.

I’m back at the airport for my flight to Vienna and in the Adria Airlines lounge. OK, I know it’s a small country, a small airline and a small airport, but the business lounge is very poor, with virtually no food, and in the hour that I’ve been here, no one has bothered to clear the empty glasses, empty bottles and half eaten bowls of biscuits that litter most of the tables. To put the tin lid on it, I can’t get a service on my GPRS card so I’m stuck here for two hours without food, Internet or a decent newspaper.

On the flights to Prague and Vienna I meet up with a young Hungarian girl who is in PR for a computer hardware manufacturer, and bores me rigid with tales of the latest laser mouse. I retaliate with Multi-surface polish and the new Oxygen Bleach, till finally she admits defeat and pretends to sleep.

The Ametyst Hotel in Prague is located in a handsome part of the city. The Prague traffic is a nightmare but eventually the airport minibus arrives outside and I’m quickly into a comfortable and modern room. My evening meeting takes only a short time, and for dinner I have a Czech goulash with what looks like the hotels’ entire stock of dumplings as an accompaniment. Later at the bar, I strike up conversation with a very genial Irishman from Fermanagh who just got married to a widow four months ago, and was rather shocked to discover that his new wife has a serious problem that he didn’t know about before he got married. As we are discussing this and I’m telling him about my own experiences living with an alcoholic, his wife appears, and instantly I am reminded of my mother. The poor man has a serious problem to contend with.

Next morning after a fine buffet breakfast, my mini-bus arrives to pick me up to go to the airport for my flight to Belgrade, and I find myself sitting with a doctor of theoretical physics who owns an international software company with headquarters in the US, and offices around Europe. I briefly consider telling him that I’m working on theoretical sales, but I reckon he wouldn’t get the joke. His wife, who is a rather dour looking woman with what Joni Mitchell called credit card eyes, isn’t talking at all, so I get a lecture on the venality of the drugs companies (his main customers) which lasts all the way to the airport.

None out of 10 to JAT Airways for the dreadful check-in at Prague Airport. Over an hour in the queue, before they open an additional desk 20 minutes before the flight. The aircraft is packed with doctors returning from a medical convention in Prague and I’m sitting beside a huge man who spills over into my space and makes the flight quite uncomfortable. JAT economy class is basic but adequate and the blue striped apron worn by the rather squat stewardess, makes her look like a fishwife, fresh from a mornings gutting.

Belgrade is not by any stretch of the imagination pretty. It was virtually destroyed during the second world war and then it was rebuilt by the communists using a Lego brick for inspiration. A few old buildings remain, but they are lost amid the hundreds of virtually identical rectangular blocks that are so typical of the former communist states.

Serbia’s recent turbulent past is still very much on the minds of the people in this city and like on my previous visit, they make sure that I am driven past the damage caused by the NATO bombing. One of the bombed out buildings I see, is (was) the Chinese Embassy, apparently hit in error. Now, I always imagined that the building was in a built up area, where you could understand, it was hit by mistake. In fact, it sits in splendid isolation near a major road, and it is very hard to believe that it was a “mistake”. Also, like on my last visit, I feel like apologising to my young hosts for what happened, and for the ludicrous situation in the late 20th century where we were bombing fellow Europeans whose country had been hijacked by a thug.
In the evening, we have a superb dinner in a magnificent restaurant. Like all Serbian meals, they serve enough food for all the diners plus another 10 people. It must be in the Serbian tradition of hospitality but the waste is enormous. Earlier we had sat outside on a floating pub on the Danube, enjoying the autumn sunshine and watching someone in a micro light flying boat practice take offs and landings on the river while we supped Slovenian beer and tried to tell each other jokes, (never a good idea when there’s a language barrier).

I remember during the NATO campaign, reading that we were bombing “Milsoevic”, or that we were bombing “Belgrade”. No we bloody well were not, we were bombing these charming, intelligent and friendly young people sitting with me, destroying chunks of their city and their economy, and scaring them shitless. For them it was terrifying and humiliating in equal measure and there is a peculiar mixture of anger and bewilderment that the NATO countries “punished” the Serbian people for the actions of an unpopular and criminal government. We’ve got a lot to explain here.

We have another meeting in the morning and then it’s off to the airport for BA to Gatwick and then on to Glasgow. I fear the worst given that it’s Friday, peak time and a London airport. Ah well, at least I’m heading west.



It’s two months on from my last entry and I’m about to go off on another trip. This time I have what is really a fairly easy jaunt around the Middle East, if there could be such a thing. Ten days, three meetings (so far), and all six flights in business class. I’ll be in Dubai, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Just a couple of days each in Saudi and Iran, but quite a few days in Dubai with not too much to do.

Bit of a breeze really.

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