A Little Bit Louder

I’m finally here… after 31 years away, I’m finally back in Hong Kong! I’m not sure why it’s significant for me to visit my birth place, but for some reason it is.

First impressions? Everything is really clean… and organized. The airport is monstrous and quite nice to look at. That said, I’ve spent enough time in airports the past 24 hours so I wasn’t keen on staying there. Other things that struck me? People obey traffic laws… it seems unusual to say that, but after being BKK, KTM, and Chengdu, it’s a very distinct and noticable change. Also, the appartment buildings are built on top of underground shopping complexes… which makes walking to everything you need quite convenient… within a few minutes walk from my aunt’s appartment, I can get pretty much anything I need.

It’s truly fantastic to see my relatives that I haven’t seen in over 10 years… 13 we figure… and my newest niece is super adorable… and hasn’t cried around me yet… woo! WOO!

I still can’t believe I’m here… after the past week, I figured all hope of me coming was gone… but here I am… and every time I stop and think about it, I can’t help but grin… not just smile… grin… like a kid who got something truly incredible… something far beyond what he could create or fascilitate himself… maybe I am that kid!

yeah that’s right… Air Canada!.... I’m not sure why everyone rags on them so much. I can’t remember the last time I had a bad experience with them. Maybe because I usually have pretty simple travel plans and not much goes on.

This trip has been different though. I don’t think anyone ever saw what’s happening in Bangkok coming. Let me set the scene for you. I booked a round trip ticket on Air Canada from Calgary (YYC) to Bangkok (BKK). Then from there, I booked a round trip ticket to Kathmandu (KTM) using aeroplan points (which saved me about $1000). I figure, while I’m here, I’ll see if i can get a cheap flight to HKG, i might as well go and see if i can visit some relatives I haven’t seen in over 10 years… probably 15… I check around and find that I can get to HKG for $330 RT from BKK, and I’m able to push out my return flight to Calgary for about $75 (which is a whole lot less than I thought Air Can would charge me).

My revised plans then are:

• Nov 26: KTM -> BKK (handled by thai air)
• Nov 28: BKK -> HKG
• Dec 5: HKG -> BKK
• Dec 7th: BKK -> YYC.

As you can see, my travel plans are heavily reliant on Bangkok being up and running.

Nov 26th: I find out that BKK is shut down … literally hours before my flight. I go down to the Thai Air office, and they issue me another ticket for the next day. I’m pretty sure the airport won’t be up and running by then, but I have little choice so I take the ticket and leave.

Nov 27th: BKK is still closed so I go back down to the Thai Air office to get a new ticket. This time they issue me a ticket for Dec 1. Again, having no choice, and not much extra money to book new flights that I would pay out of pocket, I take the ticket and resign myself to the fact that I’ll be here longer.

Nov 28th: I’m supposed to be flying to HK today on Emirates Airline. Unable to do so, I call the office to see if they can do a refund. The office here in KTM is completely useless. I’m not even sure why they exist as they tell me that Emirates doesn’t actually fly out of KTM. They tell me to wait till I get to an airport and get a refund from an actual Emirates counter.

Dec 1: I’m getting worried about getting a flight home by the 7th so I call Air Canada to see if they’ll fly me home from KTM on the 7th as they just issued a change of policy to accommodate travelers stranded by BKK and Mumbai stuff. Air Canada can’t find my Aeroplan booking. I’m starting to worry that they’ve totally lost the booking in the system and I would be up the creek waiting till Thai Air can get me back to BKK. I get transferred over to Aeroplan who are able to find the booking. Turns out that the original booking reference was overwritten by Thai Air when they rebooked my flight.

I explain my situation to the agent (who, unlike the travel insurance agent is very knowledgeable)... and she figures out I can get to HKG via Lhasa and Cheng Du. Lhasa is a tibetan city… Cheng Du is a small Chinese city of 11 million people…. I had never thought to travel that way. So I ask if she can book me and she does. So I leave KTM on Tuesday, after an extra week here, (which has been quite fun and taxing all at the same time).... It’s a 24 hour travel day to get to HKG … a direct flight would be under 4 hours, but at this point, I’m just glad to be getting out.

So now I have a flight to HKG, but a return flight from BKK to YYC. I call Air Canada back, and ask if they can reroute my ticket through HKG. The agent puts me on hold for a minute and then comes back and asks if I want to leave HKG on the 3rd since, the official Air Canada policy hasn’t indicated that my flight on the 7th would be canceled yet. I tell him that I’d actually like to stay in HKG for a few extra days if I’m going to be there, but that I’d like to be proactive in booking a flight home so that I’m not caught trying to find a last minute flight home. I tell him the 10th would be find so I can spend a full week in HKG with my relatives. The agent finds me the last seat out on the 10th via NRT (tokyo), YVR, YYC. I get in at 1:24 on the 10th. Plenty of time to get a good meal in, a shower, and still get to youth. WOOO!

Now I feel stupid for not calling AC in the first place, automatically assuming that THAI would be the best bet (Though maybe AC wouldn’t have done anything at that point anyway). Flying over to Asia, AC had the best plane, and best food vs ANA and THAI, which really surprised me. Thai kept flowing drinks, so I never went thirsty but they ran out of chicken so I had some overdone fish instead. Most importantly, when I needed a way to get home, they really stepped up. I can see now why it’s ranked one of the better airlines in the world. Thanks Air Canada!

The hardest part about being here right now is finding purpose. By Wednesday morning, I had said my goodbyes, packed, and was mentally already in Hong Kong with my relatives. Then I found out I BKK was shut down and I would be here at least another day…. and then another… and now I’m scheduled to go out Monday (which doesn’t look great either).

At least now I know I’ll be here a few more days and can once again ramp up my existence here. For a few days, I left my bags packed and tried not to start/get involved with too much locally because I wasn’t sure how long I was going to still be here. Being in that state… stasis if you will is tough on the mind. I was spending all my time trying to figure out how to still get to Hong Kong, or at least out of Kathmandu to somewhere with more flight options.

Today I pretty much accepted the fact that I am where I am, and I should make the most of my extra days here. So today was awesome. Binod taught me and Ashok how to ride a motorcycle. I’d never been on a bike before Kathmandu, and now I was riding one. Mountain biking tons this summer improved my balance significantly, so my comfort level on 2 wheels is decent. There’s lots to think about on a motorcycle though and I’m far from ready to ride in traffic, but it was a super fun afternoon of hanging out with a couple of local guys… and a whole lot of laughing. I’m not a motorcycle ninja… yet… but Mark definitely looks like one with his neck warmer up and his toque down… and I think it’ll be the NEB name one of these weeks.

Youth tonight was pretty cool too… movie, pop, popcorn… but great because of the part after where a mass of people walk home, laughing and singing silly nepali songs I don’t understand, but have actions to them … it reminded me of being in school, walking home with my friends where people would drop off along the way depending on where they lived. We never did any actions to any of the songs we sang on the way home from school, but then again, I don’t think GnR songs were meant to have actions. The best times I’ve had here in Nepal thus far have been times when I’ve just been able to hang out with people, without a specific agenda. Walking home tonight was another one of those times.

I think there’s something valuable about people living within a walking distance of church… or of the community they’re actively involved in… I love the fact that people from the church can walk over to our place… and that extended families live together… maybe I need to move?

I woke up this morning, finished packing my things and came downstairs to check my email, fb, and flight status. I got a message on my wall to give him a call before i took off because i might get stranded at the airport. So i looked on some of the news sites and lo and behold, BKK was being occupied by protesters, and the AOT decided to shut down the airport.

So, I checked with Thai Air, and they booked me a seat on tomorrow’s flight. I’m not too optimistic on anything getting resolved in the next day or two so I don’t have high hopes for that flight. Trouble is, I have a flight to HKG on friday evening. If I don’t get a flight to BKK tomorrow, I’ll miss that fight completely. If things don’t get resolved there, that flight might not happen anyways.

On a brighter note, I’m quite appreciative of the stable political situation in Canada. Being in countries where people openly want political leaders (and their supporters) dead isn’t the most comforting thing.

Now I’m trying to see if i can get to HKG via some other route and skip BKK altogether…. hoping that either Thai/Emirates or my travel insurance will pick up the tab. Travel insurance? yeah… when I called them, they weren’t quite sure what section i would claim this under and told me that unless the Canadian gov’t issues a “do not travel” advisory, they might not be able to help me out. It’s not like I just changed my mind and decided not to travel… the airport is shut down, and bombs are going off… what a load of crap. Isn’t this why I buy travel insurance?

One thing that has struck me here in the last few days is how eager people are to learn. Whether it is English, or something in church, people pay close attention, and try to learn new words, and concepts instead of simply getting enough of an idea of what’s being communicated and moving on.

I noticed that in church here, at least in the English service, and some youth groups, about half the people take notes. Maybe so that they can digest the English teaching at their own pace, or maybe because they understand and are willing to work for what they learn? I’m not sure that’s the case in back in Canada. In fact, I rarely see people value what they learn at church/youth/small group studies. Maybe we’re spoon fed too much, or maybe we take the access to teaching for granted?