Sunday, August 12, 2018
Bombay-Hong Kong-Beijing
Upon arrival at Hong Kong airport, my watch was set to Bombay local time. I knew I had a bit of a long layover in Hong Kong and I did not catch the local time when it was announced on the PA system in the aircraft. I had every intention of adjusting my watch to the local time but I clean forgot. When I looked at the Departure Board to find out my departing gate, I saw that it was much too early and had not been announced at the time. Deciding to spend time amidst the enticing duty free shops of the airport, I completely lost track of time. In fact, I even wondered if I should have a bite as I surveyed the offerings in the Food Court. Time flew and I was oblivious to it. When I looked at my watch next, I still had loads of time left before boarding.
So you can imagine my shock when I looked at the Departure Board next and discovered that they were announcing ‘Final Call’ for my flight! How was that even possible, I wondered. There was still two hours before my flight took off. And that’s when it hit me like a ton of bricks. Hong Kong was two hours ahead of Bombay time and I had not adjusted my watch. I was bound to miss my flight and the possibility did not bear thinking. In absolute panic, I asked where the gate was and discovered that it was miles away! I was in a blind panic. Tearing across the airport and taking an escalator down, I found my gate and discovered that several announcements had been made calling my name—none of which I could hear as I was miles away in another part of the airport! As it turned out, I had to take a shuttle bus to my aircraft which was parked at a distant bay some miles out at the airport. Luckily, they had not yet shut the doors nor had they removed the ladder leading from the runway to the aircraft door. So, after the traffic assistant at the airport made a call, they were able to take me alone in a shuttle bus from the boarding gate to the airport to board my flight—which, as it turns out, to my great good fortune, was an hour delayed!
Seated at a window, I tried to calm my wildly beating heart. But that was only the dramatic beginning of what became a seemingly endless saga of attempting to reach Beijing. It was about 1.30 pm local time when we left Hong Kong. The flight was about 4 hours long but just an hour before landing, they made an announcement on my China Eastern Airlines flight in Chinese. They also translated it into English but the PA system was poor and the accent was so strong that I did not understand much.
We landed at what seemed like scheduled time to me and then I kept wondering why we were not disembarking. After waiting for more than half an hour,I asked the girl next to me if she spoke English and when she said she spoke a little, I asked why we were not deplaning. That’s when she gave me a huge shock! It turns out we were not in Beijing at all! Apparently bad weather in Beijing had caused our plane to land two hours away at an airport in a city called ZhengZhou which was a 2 hour flight from Beijing!
It was about 6.00 pm Chinese local time and there was still bright sunshine outside. But for what seemed like forever, nothing happened. Next thing I saw, they were unloading our plane of passenger baggage! I asked my fellow-passenger what was going on and she told me that to save time, they had decided to get us to disembark and since we had arrived from Hong Kong, they were going to have us go through Chinese immigration in ZhengZhou to save time once we arrived eventually in Beijing.
By then it was 8.00 pm and darkness had fallen over China. I was in despair as Llew was flying into Beijing from New York and was supposed to be connecting with me at Beijing airport. I had no idea if his flight had been diverted too. If so, he could be anywhere in China! If not, he could be waiting for me in Beijing in despair. I had no internet—so no way of reaching him to tell him where I was. At 9.00 pm, we disembarked and went through Chinese Immigration and Customs—the whole nine yards—finger printing, pupil identification, etc. My Chinese visa was checked. I was allowed out and told to pick up my case and proceed to another gate. We would be taking a domestic flight to Beijing.
When I found the gate, I got a new boarding pass and decided not to check in my small bag. I did not want to waste any more time retrieving it when we reached Beijing. By this time, Llew would have landed in Beijing and probably had WiFi there. I asked Stephanie, my fellow traveler, if I could use her email to reach Llew as there is no gmail in China! Long story short, I did make contact with Llew with whom I then kept in touch until we took off more than 3 hours later at well past midnight. The airline arranged for us to get packed dinners and bottles of water and whole families sat in a packed waiting room for take off. We were fed up, tired and anxious to get on. I had been traveling for more than 24 hours and I was exhausted.
It was only when Chinese passengers started shouting and making a scene that the China Eastern Airlines ground staff asked us to reboard the flight. Barely anyone could speak English and I faced the beginning of the endless linguistic problems that would dog us throughout our travels in China. It turned out to be the same aircraft in which we had landed at Zhengzhou—so we were not waiting for a replacement aircraft. Why had we been kept waiting for almost 5 hours?
Anyway, eventually we did take off and arrived in Beijing at 2.00 am! Llew was at the Arrivals Lounge waiting for me after what had been over a 24 hour flying journey for him from New York. At 3.00 am, it was so hard to get a cab to our hotel and when a ‘taxi shark’ who called himself an Official Taxi man, led us down a dark and remote alleyway to presumably find a cab for us, we followed him—until I began to smell a rat! Why were we not in the regular Taxi Queue? Next thing we knew, the Shark was asking us for 500 yuan (about $80) to take us downtown to our hotel! We were in shock until I smelled a rat and told him to take us to the regular taxi queue right around the main door of the airport. He began shouting at me but piped down when I shouted right back at him! This was our first experience on arrival in China and, believe me, from that moment on, it just did not stop. Every single step was a challenge. When we did retrace our steps and get to the official taxi line, we had to wait for an hour before we were actually seated in a cab and then the driver did not know where our hotel was! A full 15 minute discussion with a bunch of taxi dispatchers finally saw us leave into the darkened streets of Beijing at 4.00 am. What a horrible way to arrive in China from halfway around the world!
Once we got off the cab, we had a hard time trying to find our hotel. It turned out to be a hutong—a traditional Beijing habitation that involves a one-storied structure based around an open courtyard. It was called the Red Capital Residence Hotel and I had found it through Lonely Planet which is my Travel Bible. With difficulty, we actually found it and with relief, we rang the bell and were welcomed by the receptionist called Frank Wang who checked us in and gave us the key to our room. We basically just threw off our shoes and threw ourselves on the bed and simply passed out. It was almost 5.00 am and we slept till 8.00 am.
It had been a crazy entry into China...and the craziness would continue with little relief.
Until tomorrow...
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