16 Sep 2015

Travel - A Luxury

I’m traveling from the sleepy town of Ella (Sri Lanka) to the city of Cebu (Philippines). Here’s how that works out. Spoiler: I spend about 52 hours in transit. Don’t do that, it’s retarded.

The walk

Around six o’clock in the evening my friends walk me to Ella train station. Spirits are high, as we were just beginning to recover from the coconut cider drunk the night before. We pass the waiting time making fun of a particularly low-nippled stray dog running around the station. When I ask an attendant where the 3rd-class carriage carriage will stop, he mentions it might be a sleeper carriage, with beds.

The train

It’s not. This becomes quite clear when the train finally arrives, but is also gleefully pointed out by my friends. We part ways on good terms anyway, and I walk out into the starry night, hop down onto the tracks and climb up into the carriage. Third class is barebones but…largely barebones, really. I sprawl out over two seats, which happens automatically if you’re wider than 30cm. The train is pretty empty at this stage. I use the first of twelve hours to craft an insightful and well-received essay on my situation. Then I plug in my headphones and start napping. I wake up as a heavy-set local squeezes in next to me. Heavy-set and twitchy: He’ll spend the next 10 hours fidgeting. I can’t sleep properly anyway. Instead, I spend the night somewhere between wakefulness and dreams. My perception of time just stops, until I notice the sky brightening. We reach Colombo at six in the morning.

The bus

At Colombo station I find myself some Samosas for breakfast, which I eat waiting for the airport bus. I try to stare down a crow which is overtly curios about my samosa. The crow is not impressed. A few meters down the road a local guy is blowing chunks with abandon. Into a trash can - Sri Lankans are a considerate bunch. The crow and its friends are visibly excited.

The bus ride is long, but uneventful. I doze off a few times, before we reach the airport. I end up walking a kilometer to the terminal and reach it sweat-soaked around 9 in the morning.

The first airport

Colombo airport is quiet and relaxed. Through the big windows I can see the tropical garden outside the terminal. Since my flight is not leaving until 4 o’clock, I can’t check in yet and end up sitting in the departure hall. My friends are all still asleep, so I have nobody to complain to. Instead, I buy chocolate. When I check in, I save 50 Euro on baggage, since the staff accepts my only bag as a carry-on. Joke’s on them, as it’s vastly overweight and held together by straining - and alarmingly frayed - compression straps. You don’t want to be anywhere near them when they eventually snap. Even more miraculously the security guys let me keep my scissors.

The first flight

I get a window seat on our Airbus 330 and settle in. Even after flying my entire life I can’t get over how inspiring it is: I’m being hurled into the air faster than any bird, in a house made of metal, powered by continuous explosions of liquefied dinosaurs. But sure, keep reading your Financial Times, you philistine! Once in the air, I do fall asleep though.

I wake up half-way through the flight. Outside, night is falling and we’re flying right into it. The view is mesmerizing: the stars loom up over us in a black sky. Beneath them clusters of lights trace coastlines, which separate the lights which are stars from those that are ships on the black seas. It feels as if we could be among the stars if we just banked a little to the left. After a while I wipe my nose-print off the window and doze off again. We reach Kuala Lumpur at 22:00h.

The second airport

Kuala Lumpur International Airport No. 2 (KLIA2) is vast, modern and bright. There are plenty of people around, but nobody is yelling. Shouldn’t there be yelling? This is all very confusing.

Since my connecting flight to Manila only leaves at 08:20h the next morning, I have booked 12 hours in a sleeping capsule, so I have to go through immigration, even though the place is right in the terminal (“capsule by container”, KLIA2 - go look it up, I’ll wait!). I check in, take a few pictures and go hunt for dinner. The airport is more of a mall anyway, with the occasional flight arriving or departing. I end up eating junk and then book a flight out of the Philippines, which I apparently need to get a visa. I turn in around midnight local time but lie awake for almost an hour because my body clock is two hours behind.

I get ripped out of deep sleep by my alarm after what feels like a painfully short nap. It’s 05:30h. Four and a half hours of sleep. Three thirty in the morning, by my inner clock.

I check out and trudge back through the airport in a state of angry, confused stupor. It’s packed with people. There are too many people here. We need a new plague. Whatever became of SARS?

The walk to the gate is so long I’m beginning to wonder where the security check is. What is that hassle even good for? What if a county decided to just trust people not to be idiots and …nothing happened? What then?

At this airport the process is quick and efficient though. It pleases me. I’m considerably less pleased when I find out that there is no coffee available after security. This seems doubly unfair as the departure hall had two Starbucks and various other sources for that hot, black magic that keeps me moving. I refuse to eat noodles-in-a-cup for breakfast (I’m an adult) and settle for two fudge brownies (…I can do what I want!). At the gate the boarding process is fast and I’m on the plane in no time.

The second flight

Another window seat. Fog and clouds outside. Sleep-deprived me passes out as soon as we pass through the clouds.

We pass over some insanely beautiful islands and reefs, before we land. Oddly, I see no major urban areas during our decent. Turns out, we didn’t land in Manila. Ooops! Due to bad weather we landed in the province. In Clarkfield. Now we’re refueling, to fly to Manila. Hopefully. Pleasantly little panic aboard about the delay.

Nope, one hour later we’re still standing on the airfield. I relent and order coffee. It’s amazing to see how relaxed people are about the whole thing. No whining, no complaints. Conversation and laughter instead. If I think of this happening in Europe…

Oh, we’re taking off! After 13 minutes in the air and a generous loop over the sprawling cityscape of Manila we land at the right airport. Non-sarcastic applause fills the cabin. I stand amazed.

The third airport

Since I arrived three hours late, I rush through immigration and to transfers to catch my connecting flight. Wikivoyage has Manila as one of the world’s worst airports, but what I see looks relatively orderly and efficient. A quick jog brings me to the gate just in time for the announcement that this flight is delayed by about two hours. The intended plane has failed to show up. I’m concerned over how little concern I see in the faces of other passengers: Is that normal? Will we get a similarly deadpan eulogy? About an hour later a plane does show up at the gate just as I return from a food-run. I board the plane filled with a sense of doom and two beef-and-cheese panini.

The third flight

Isle seat. Bumpy take-off. Language hard, brain much tired. Head ouch. Are we there yet? I buy a can of beer for…several rup-…ring-…moneys. Finally the plane touches down.

The fourth airport

The airport is alright. Outside it’s raining. I stand in line for a taxi and then get in a taxi.

The taxi

After a few attempts the driver finds the hostel. The city looks dark and rainy. I pay about 4 Euro for 13km and mutter something that rhymes with “clucking bell” as I stumble out of the taxi.

The hostel

The lobby is full of blond-curled Australian surfer-dudes whose offer to join them I regrettably decline. Better save that experience for tomorrow. I grab my complimentary beer and find my dorm. 52 hours, door to door. About 4,5 hours of proper sleep, a few naps. Otherwise propelled onwards by coffee, beer and junk food. Travel, eh?

Until next time,
Arne