The poor weather in the UK which shut down Heathrow for a couple of days means that rather than shooting in Botswana, we are catching up on all sorts of (shitty) stuff in London. Our Virgin flight to Joburg should have left on Monday night, but was cancelled. We are booked for Friday night, but who knows? In BAA we do not trust.
This made us both reflect that it is becoming increasingly impossible to take international travel for granted as all too often something messes up the best made plans. Just looking back at problems we have had with some of our trips...
1. In March to celebrate Adam's 50th, we had booked a recce to attend the Holi festival in Rajasthan. We turned up at the Virgin check-in desk at Heathrow only to be told that Julie's multi entry visa had ceased to be a multi entry on account of anti-terrorism measures and she could not fly. No phone calls to the Indian embassy (Adam spoke to the security guard), pleadings with Virgin or anyone else changed that so Adam flew on his own.
2. On another trip Adam was out in Iraq trying to get back to London to meet up with Julie before heading down to Tanzania. A sandstorm shut down Baghdad for 24 hours and he missed all his connections and had lots of waiting in Jordan before arriving in Tanzania a few days late.
3. Last summer without any reason aside from a "technical fault" our Virgin flight to Joburg was delayed 12 hours ... lucky we had built in a 24 hour buffer before our connecting flight.
4. The BA strike 12 months ago gave us kittens. Lucky the strike ended a couple of days before we were due to travel to India. However again bad weather set in and we remember long lists of flights cancelled on the departure boards. Lindy flew in from the US to hook up with us and was not able to enter the terminal to meet up for hours. In the end fine, but lots of worry.
5. Passport theft in France meant Adam not being able to fly to the Congo on time for one of our Bonobo trips and a very fraught Christmas yo-yo-ing between London and Paris to get new passport, new visa, new flights.
6. Don't mention the Icelandic volcano this year!
So, what are the lessons?
A. Assume that for big trips something will go wrong. So build in some buffer at the start to ensure that if the international flight is late setting off, hopefully all is not lost.
B. Check visa conditions, not once but again and maybe again a week before you depart in case the government changes the rules.
C. There are many, many people with much bigger problems, so keep a sense of proportion.
As the great Chinese traveller, Lin Yutand, said "A good traveller is one who does not know where he is going to, and a perfect traveller does not know where he came from" and by Lewis Carroll (Adam's favorite) "If you do not know where you are going, any road will get you there".
Enjoy your own Christmas breaks and a wonderful 2011 for you all! Be safe, have fun, and despite all odds, keep traveling.
Julie and Adam
Perils and uncertainty of travel - 23 December 2010
