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Published: August 1st 2008
(This blog entry not for those who get queasy easy!)
I'm not relishing the prospect of another night flight from Dubai to Cochin in Southern India. I'm exhausted, fresh out of the desert post-jeep incident, post-sandboarding and with a temperature of 48degrees again I'm totally hot and bothered and exhausted. Drinking coffee waiting for a flight at 3am has kind of pissed me off but at least when I'm on the plane I'll sleep I tell myself soothingly. But I've forgotten the time difference which once again means I'm basically missing a night's sleep and I haven't considered that the flight might be bumpy.
The Captain warns us it might get a bit "bumpy" in the middle of the flight. The seatbelt light remains on the entire flight. I have to switch seats because the one I start off in is broken and not only doesn't recline (oh the horrors!) but it also has a large jaunty pointy bit which digs into my back the entire take-off. Luckily they eventually find me another seat (unfortunately not in first class which is what I was hoping for!) but next to a very smart looking Indian lady in a very pretty sari.
She doesn't speak a word of English, and unfortunately I haven't read my phrasebook yet. The flight remains bumpy throughout. Something to do with the monsoons I'm guessing. The plane entertainment gadget (computer games, internet, movies, telephone, music etc all at the press of a button if you can figure out how to use the damn thing!) has the delightful facility of showing you 2video cameras one strapped to the belly of the plane and one near the front. So you can watch with sick fascination as you take off and land and see what a good, or not, job the Captain is doing. On take-off I take one look and decide i don't want to watch the rain lashing down and the runway whizzing by, but I can see 27screens around me that all have the camera on anyway!
Ah yes onto the vomit part of the story, not mine thankfully. So on landing, the flight got even bumpier, the plane video cameras got even scarier to watch and yes people started to look a little green. The smart lady next to me is looking for something and I can't figure out what until I realise that she is quite pale, I hand her the nearest thing I have to hand - unfortunately a see-through plastic bag my plane blanket came in). Just in time I realise as she throws up for the rest of the landing.
I try to avert my gaze and try not to vomit myself. This is made slightly harder when I look in the other direction and see someone praying and then a man 2rows infront vomits onto the seatback infront of him.
Then horror of horrors, the lady next to me (who now that we have landed is now looking a much healthier colour) she folds up the seethrough plastic bag of terror-vom and after looking around as if for divine inspiration, packs it neatly into her handbag. It's a close call but I manage not to throw up!
Luckily shortly after we land (quite nicely the video camera shows, despite the rain, lack of visibility and the turbulence!) I resist the urge to cheer and instead try to wait patiently to get off the plane, when someone runs their wheelie suitcase over my foot I almost throw up in retaliation, but don't and make it into the safehaven that is the airport.
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Jim
non-member comment
Those cameras are the best thing about flying with Emirates! The A380s have one in the tail too. Just caught up with this blog and am reading my way through it. Have fun and try to keep not throwing up! Jim