We had a fairly relaxing morning, with not much to do since we did most of our packing the day before. We opted to leave the Bible college at 10:00 to get to the airport in plenty of time for our 1:00 flight. The international check-in was nowhere near as chaotic as domestic. However, after going through security it was pretty diabolical – 5 numbered gates (each of which led to a bus, or straight to a plane) and no indication of where each one was headed until ‘boarding’ started. Then of course they called for priority boarding, families with young children etc. who got on the bus first, then we got on. So upon arriving at the plane, we got on first – so much for ‘priority boarding’!
About an hour after taking off we landed in Kolkata for refuelling. (Due to the fuel crisis, airlines were not allowed to refuel in Kathmandu, and every aircraft had to have sufficient fuel on board to fly out once it arrived.) About 45 minutes later we were on our way to Singapore. It was a flight time of around 6 hours in total, during which time it became clear that we were seated in daycare class. There were at least 9 children under the age of 4 (i.e. seated on their parent’s lap) within three rows of us. It made for a very long flight with the crying, wailing, screaming, squealing, seat kicking and random touching. Then nobody seemed to be in a hurry to get off the plane when we were disembarking...
We stayed a night and a day in Singapore, visiting the Garden by the Bay and Orchard Road for some shopping, since the weather decided to bucket down every couple of hours or so. Then it was back to the airport for our overnight flight to Auckland. We got a bit held up at the biosecurity check, but got the all clear and just managed to catch our connecting flight to Wellington. It was so good to be home!
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