Why is it that I can never have a holiday without something going
wrong with the organising part?! I rocked into London after an hour’s
flight from Edinburgh and they hadn’t put my bag on the plane. No
problem; it was only one night, and I was going back to the airport the
next day anyway. It was actually kinda cool, because it meant I didn’t
have to lug my big pack around with me on the tube.
What
happened the next day I didn’t expect – I rocked up to Heathrow extra
early to get my bag, but I couldn’t find the damn baggage office. Every
British Airways staff member I asked couldn’t tell me where to find it,
and I wandered around two Terminals for about an hour and a half,
getting more and more stressed, before finally finding a BA ‘staff
locator’ phone. After ringing about 20 times to speak to someone, they
advised me to get on my flight or I’d miss it, worry about the bag in
Singapore, and they would try to put it on the same flight.
When
I rocked into Singapore feeling totally knackered, the bag was nowhere
to be seen, and so I lodged another report of missing luggage and had to
be content trying to chase it up from Indonesia. Then, not only did I
have no bag, nor was I sure if I would get it at all, but I had to spend
an extra day in Singapore.
Before I left Indonesia,
Australian Red Cross & the Dept of Immigration hadn’t processed
my KITAS visa in time (which allows us multiple entry into Indonesia) so
I had to get an exit pass and then apply for the usual visa in
Singapore. No problem normally; but I’d already booked and paid for all
my flights and was scheduled to arrive back Monday 5th January in
Simeulue. I had to spend an extra day in Singapore to process my visa,
which meant changing my Singapore – Medan - Simeulue flights by a day.
The Singapore – Medan flight was the killer; due to the time of year
there were no flights available apart from travelling business class or
paying twice as much.
So, in the end, ARC organised for me to do this:
1. Spend the day in Singapore (no problem, wandering around the shops is ok for me!)
2. Catch a ferry to Batam Island (Indonesia)
3. Spend a night in a hotel in Batam
4. Get
a flight the next day to Medan (ended up being delayed for 4 hours -
boo! I have spent so much time sitting around in airports I’ve lost
count)
5. Stay overnight again in Medan, as my flights don’t connect
(no problem, I was happy to catch up with Wendy and Agnes, two mates
living there)
6. Fly to Simeulue the next day.
So in
the end, it cost a lot more money and I arrived in Simeulue two days
later than scheduled. What a lot of fucking around. If they’d got off
their ass and organised it properly beforehand (they had so much time!),
it would have saved all of that, plus a lot of frustration and boredom
from me. Blergh.
Adding to my woes when I got back to
Simeulue were my phone calls to BMI central baggage HQ; they didn’t know
where my bag was. Eventually they located it and after lots of stuffing
around with sending it on different airlines, my good buddy ShirShar
from Norwegian Red Cross picked it up from Medan’s Polonia airport and
brought it to Simeulue. Hooray! So when I get back from the field on
Friday, I can finally download and share all my photos (which I’ve been
dying to do – my chargers and cables and everything are inside!). Phew!
Now just have to tackle a week in the field…
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