Thursday 6th November 2014

Finally the day has arrived, we are on our way to China!

We booked the trip many months ago and at times it seemed like the day would never arrive. Once again we are travelling with our good friends Anne and Pete. The four of us spent some considerable time planning our itinerary and we believe that we have put together what should be an excellent holiday.

Once we decided on the basic itinerary, we contacted 3 or 4 travel companies for quotes etc. We eventually decided to book with China Links, a company that has a base both in London and Beijing.

Unfortunately in the last couple of weeks we have had to agree to 3 changes to our itinerary so we are hoping that there will be no further changes and everything will go according to plan.

We have all done quite a bit of research about the places we are visiting, so between us we have a little knowledge about most of the sights and we have a list of ‘must do’s’ and ‘mustn’t miss’….

Our journey started this morning at 5am and we expect it to take about 24hours- “a long time”, I can hear you say but our return will take 36 hours…

The first flight of the day was just a short hop from Chania, Crete to Athens, we now have a six hour wait for the next flight which will take us to Moscow. We will be in Moscow transit lounge for a couple of hours before the final flight of the day, a 7-hour journey to Beijing – the capital of China.

I logged onto the free wi fi and decided to post on Facebook that I am “travelling to China”, Dave and I were amazed to receive so many ‘likes’ and good wishes for our travels from our friends and family within a couple of minutes.

A week or so ago Dave and I watched the film “Chef”. Part of the film tells the story of a father and son going on a road trip. The young boy made a small video each day of something that they were doing, each one just a few seconds long. At the end of their adventure he put the videos together and it was a fabulous reminder of the trip. My intention is to do the same, let’s see how I do…

We found an Irish Bar in the transit lounge at Moscow airport and Dave enjoyed a ‘proper beer’. We then waited at gate 50 as the departure board had advised us. Dave went to buy a bottle of water for the aeroplane, not as easy as it sounds when we couldn’t use euros and there was nowhere to change cash. I noticed on the information board that the gate had now changed to number 42, so I rushed to find Dave, which luckily I did quite quickly and the four of us hurried to the newly appointed gate and joined the queue which had already commenced boarding.

We settled ourselves quickly and Dave started to look at what films were available, the screens were on the rear of the seat in front and had the usual choice of entertainment including films, music, computer games and even audio books. What was new to us was that the monitor also showed the runway, and you could see it rapidly going by and finally disappearing as the aircraft taxied and then took off. I read my book. We both intended to attempt to get some sleep after the meal was served as we had plans for the next day.

Approximately one hour into the flight, an announcement informed us that due to a technical problem we would have to return to Moscow. After the announcement we never saw another flight attendant, no one came to check that the seats were in the upright positions etc as is the usual procedure for landing. We were also surprised that the monitor in front of us still showed the landing, so we could see (as well as feel) the sudden swerve of the plane as it touched down. The four of us, who happened to be seated on different sides of the aircraft, all noticed the fire engines speeding along side us as we sped down the runway.

We were advised that another plane would be available in 3 or 4 hours. We were issued with a new boarding card and a meal voucher so we could have something to eat while we waited.

We chatted and agreed that unfortunately we would not have time to visit the Lama Temple etc on our first day as we had originally planned but at least we had landed safely! All will be well! A short while later we were advised that the replacement plane would arrive at 1am by which time we will have been awake for 20 hours and we are still only in Moscow!

We had changed our watches to Russian time shortly after arriving and then put them to Chinese time after boarding the flight to Beijing, somehow though, we were all confused and we all thought it was a different time.

A Russian chap (the one we had thought was a member of staff in the Irish bar… well he was wearing a green t shirt and he was also quite short – maybe he was a leprechaun…) informed Anne and Pete that the flight had made the evening news, ‘plane makes an emergency landing due to engine failure’, the A330 airbus has apparently only two engines, clearly (and extremely lucky for us) it can fly on one…

Before boarding the bus to take us to the replacement plane the attendant took Pete’s boarding card and said ‘have a good flight’ he quickly retorted ‘you said that last time!’ We were on the bus for a minimum of 15 minutes none of us had ever experienced such a long time to get to the aircraft from the terminal building. We had been given the same seats on the replacement plane, it was filling up slowly, and I think there was only one bus and driver available. The scene on the plane was like the film Groundhog Day, the same people sitting in the same seats, the same people chatting with the same people, some looking a little nervous now. The plane finally took off about 1.30am Moscow time, which made us about 4 and a half hours late.

Never easy to sleep on a plane and although travelling for many hours I felt my spirits lift when the cabin crew announced only two and a half hours to go, and I couldn’t resist asking Dave if we should lift the window blind and take our first peek at Peking.

 

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