Travels of the pretty pink suitcases - Part One

I should title this 'How to miss a connection and lose your luggage - Fly Qantas!!' but have decided that since whenever they actually managed to fly us, they did a good job, and looked after us pretty well even when they stranded us in Sydney, I shall treat them with some amount of kindness. Not much, mind you, just a little bit; those of you who know me, put it down to the Christmas spirit of giving or in this case, forgiving, floating around in the air and those of you who don't know me; why I'm the kindest, most forgiving soul in the universe anyways, what does a missed flight - or two - matter?

I've had a pretty good time so far. Wednesday was spent in Mumbai with a close friend. We did some shopping, some eating, some sleeping and a lot of chatting. Just the way to begin a great holiday. By Wednesday evening, I was at the airport, where my cuz and travel companion was waiting. Now, he's this seasoned international traveler - you wouldn't say it to see him, he looks just barely out of his teens and has this wide-eyed innocent look - but seasoned he is and that's good for a novice like me.

Let's see, where did we start off - oh yes, at the Qantas counter where the girl looked at his ticket and tried desperately to pronounce his name (the usual tongue-twisting Syrian Christian family name), gave up and addressed him as Mr. zzzzzzzz. The same place where I checked in my pretty pink suitcase. The pretty pink tote-bag travelled with me as hand baggage. The girl at the counter did put us through the third degree, asking us if we were carrying any plants, food, medicines or cosmetics. Well, I had medicine and cuz had toothpaste so we were both warned that these may be thrown out when we arrived in Australia. Didn't sound like too much of a problem; my medicines were accompanied by a prescription and what's a toothpaste after all?

So, pretty pink tote in hand, I landed up at the immigration counter. First major obstacle : My passport had less than 6 months validity and the officer looked me up and down and asked me 'What to do? What to do?' I looked at him with this pathetic 'oh god what to do' look and cuz looked at him with his 'wide-eyed innocent abroad' look and the guy decided that we were a waste of his time, so he allowed us to go.

Our flight was an hour and a half late so we killed time and a couple of beers and then found out there was another half hour to go. Yeah, realised that we would miss our Sydney-Melbourne connection anyway. Decided not to worry about it until we were actually there. Both of us turned out to be ardent Jet Airways fans and discovered that Qantas does not measure up in any way to that fantastic set of people. The flight was okay, though they did run out chicken and we ended up having rice and peas and paneer for dinner. Ugh!! Was way too hungry to do anything but eat it, so I did, but I can tell you I was not too happy about it. I slept, fitfully and woke up feeling kind of zonked. I had also woken up at night to parade up and down the aisles and wiggled my toes and rotated my ankles to keep DVT at bay. But it was a twelve-hour flight after all, and even with all of this, my ankles were slightly swollen - it had me worried for a while.

Sydney Airport took care of that problem. After we disembarked, it was one long unending walk. Seriously, anyone coming to Australia better be fit or register as an invalid and ask for a wheel chair. They make you walk miles to get from one counter to the next. We breezed through Australian customs and quarantine - I didn't lose my medicines and cuz didn't lose his toothpaste.

Okay, it's about 1 p.m. (Tasmanian time) and I am now too sleepy to keep going. Our day in Sydney and how we finally reached Devonport, Tasmania, will be covered in the next post.

You guys have a good-oh day!