Thai airways people - you are so unduly nice, and your cuisine is exquisite. You even offered me a blanket after boarding in 32C pitch black evening heat with high humidity. That's very kind, but my sweating white body couldn't think of anything I wanted less than a blanket at that point. I've spent very few days of my life in temps you take for granted, but Thorong La felt surprisingly familiar!
I'm certainly not the foreigner who's going to change Indian "queuing" culture, but I found it amusing. When the monk who was between Gerry and I somehow expanded to another half dozen Indians between us and I cracked a joke to my travel companion about how that happened in the blink of an eye, I'm glad the security guy noticed and stopped them and waved me ahead. Small victory. We aren't trying to take ourselves too seriously, but the lineup scrums felt nice when they halted the ferverous mass and just called business class through. Ahh...
I've never been in a country as short a duration as India. Maybe I'll have to extend that at some point. We deplaned and an employee had signs with our names. We ran down the hall with him as he relayed our baggage tag numbers. He'd switch from his language to the Queen's English seamlessly. Got us a back way to transfer tickets, security, then boarding. We were out of a plane for no more than 15 minutes. Amazingly efficient!
Then there was Frankfurt, orderly and clean, complete with buxom young multilingual German girls handing out fresh baked salted pretzels and beer. I didn't care what time of day that was or should be; I didn't care about calories with nil nutrition. I'd been dreaming about that moment since my second day of empty stomach at the Famous Farm in Nawakot. It couldn't be more clear that this was a return to the western world.
Too bad upon arrival home Gerry and I are without luggage - I'd guess it's in India.
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