Due to trying to avoid the costs of
getting a taxi to the train station 20km away due to the cost I had
an early start so as to give myself plenty of time to find my way
through the bus system to the small town my train would be leaving
from. Despite the traffics' best efforts I managed to make good time,
even managing to fit in an omelet from down the road from the
station. From my extensive experience on long trains the ten hour
trip to Mumbai was a breeze and I soon found myself at jumping off
the train into the mayhem that is Bombay. My plan was basic; attempt
to either find a place to stay near the airport or sleep on the floor
in the airport, my first step however was to find my way to somewhere
near the airport. At this point I made a rookie mistake and asked
someone where I may find the train there, they said they would help
and took me to a taxi and after a bit of dialogue I told them where
to go and went back into the train station to enquire further. I qued
and managed to get a ticket for about 150 times cheaper than the taxi
would have been but I still had to climb the mountain of finding the
right train. This took about 45 minutes after asking about fifteen
people including railway workers and the police who had no idea what
they were talking about, eventually I found a European guy who
pointed me in the right direction. The train took me to the nearest
station to the airport and on arriving I went on a wander to look for
a possible place to stay. This was less productive as I would have
hoped as apparently there are next to no cheap hotels in Mumbai so I
gave up on the fruitless search and decided to make a beeline to the
airport which from my map looked pretty close. After haggling down a
rickshaw driver to a price I thought reasonable we set off and as the
trip went on the traffic got worse and by the time I arrived at the
airport I nearly felt bad for how low a price I had demanded as It
proved to be a fair way, nearly. After paying the driver I made for
the door so they could tell me I was not allowed into the airport
because my flight was not in the next four hours, it was in-fact in
22 hours. Just when I was about to set up camp by the front door for
the next day one of the guards on the door told me there was a
waiting area for people that had arrived before the four hour
allotted airport admittance time so I went in search of it, it was at
the end of the terminals and cost about 80 pence which I thought was
a steal for a place to stay for a day! The waiting area was a large
air-conditioned area at the end of the departures building with a lot
of chars some toilets and a café, everything I needed, even a couple
of power points so I got plugged in and started wasting away the
hours watching breaking bad. At about 2am I started feeling a little
tired so I went in search of a corner and settled down to sleep on
the floor.
I woke up at about 4 am and I was
freezing, I had spent next to no time in air-conditioned areas for
the last month so I was not used to the frigid climate. To my delight
the person on the reclined chair near by had left so I took my
chance to get off the marble floor and claimed the chair taking the
storm cover off my backpack to use as a sleeping bag and settled down
for a far more cosy second bout of sleep. It was nine when I woke
next and I was feeling peckish so after a trip to the toilet I
frequented the café for a pricey sandwich and a coffee to accompany
the second half of my breaking bad marathon. Over the course of the
day I was asked by another guy in the café to watch his stuff while
he went out for a smoke and in the early evening we we eventually got
chatting which passed the last of my time in the waiting area. When
my time came I collected up my effects and walked to the entrance to
the airport to swagger in now I was able, I had been saving the last
of my rupees for some hot food when I was through security but I was
to be kept waiting. Most flights out of Mumbai are in the evening so
the airport was heaving so first I had to queue for an hour for
immigration and another 30 minutes for the luggage screening when I
got through I literally threw my money at the KFC teller. Wasted away
the rest of my wait looking through the duty free and reading until
it was time to board.
I arrived into Singapore early in the
morning and I had never seen an airport like it, it is huge and is
set out like a hotel lobby has copulated with a mall. I wearily
wandered over to the nearest help desk and asked where I may be
getting my connecting flight and they gave me directions including a
walk a train and another walk so I shuffled off along the trail. En
route I stopped at a free computer to see what was going on in the
world and shortly continued. When I reached the other side of the
airport a couple of kilometres away I found that the jet-star desk
didn’t open for a couple more hours so I went on a wonder and had a
nap under a couple of metal chairs. I then headed to the desk to
collect my boarding pass, it was at this point I found out that I
needed a visa to even visit Australia and I was directed to the other
side of customs to the Quantas desk. This didn’t take as long as I
had feared and organising the visa was fairly cheap and fast so I
once again headed to a jet star desk to collect my boarding pass.
After queueing again I collected my boarding pass however when asking
about my checked in bag I was told that they didn’t know where it
was. I spent the next hour and a half being sent on a goose chase
around Singapore airport only to come to the conclusion that I should
go and get my flight and see if my bag is there when I get there and
if not deal with it when I am in Perth, I was not best please but I
had no choice but to do so as I was out of time. The jet star flight
was pretty basic with no complementary in-flight food, refreshments
or entertainment so I went without as I had no currency with me so
the next 5 hours went pretty slowly.
I arrived in Perth after two days
without sleep and only 3 meals and with no idea if I would find my
bag there. I got through customs without any issues and
apprehensively made my way to baggage claim, my fears were for naught
as my bag was there waiting for me. I recognised the end of the
roughing it in the form of a Pete Mulvaney waiting with a grin on his
face in the arrivals hall...
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