The air that I breathe (leaving Sydney)

Sydney to China: part 1 of the flight

While there was a little discussion around the title of this blog, flying into Bayuin airport in Ghuangzhou province and seeing the air that I breathe was enough. It was like descending through a cloud, except it was all smog.  I know you’re not interested in the smog alert, that climate change is rubbish and brown air is great for your health. How was the ‘experimental flight’ I hear you cry.

Well … the jury is still out. It’s complicated. The ground staff in Sydney was excellent, cheerful and helpful. The plane arrived late and subsequently departed late, but hey, I usually fly Qantas so that was nothing new. The good thing about the late departure meant that we would spend less time hanging out in an airport terminal in China. The scheduled 7 hours between flights is a real deal breaker. But more about the 1970s and Bayuin airport later.

The flight from Sydney to China was OK – and the landing was a good one, and that is one of the big measures for me.  However, the plane left a lot to be desired. Late arrival meant a rushed changeover.  While I had a blanket and pillow, there was no headset.  Jayne’s seat was the same, but Cait scored a headset.  Excellent, she could hear the movies.  Except, we were on an Airbus 330-300.  Old school. Seriously.  No individual screens!  I was close enough to see the picture but not to read the subtitles.  No need for a headset after all.  Then there was the choice of ‘entertainment’.  As you would know dear reader, I love a B grade movie, especially if it contains senseless violence.  That is my choice though and I wouldn’t have shown one of the movies to young children.  The violence, although not Django Unchained (more blood than the blood bank) in style, was gut-wrenching and head-turning.  Then to even the balance (ying/yang, see what I did there? never mind) we were submitted to really bad manga animations.  So, on an 8 hour(ish) flight, it meant I got to concentrate on other things.  Sadly.

Like the adequate service.  And the airline food.  There were some interesting combinations.  Really, some things are best left unsaid.

Then in an ultimate cultural statement, just in case you hadn’t noticed you were flying a Chinese airline, they finished with an activity that was based on the ‘ancient rituals’.  So, about an hour out, they stopped all programs to broadcast a wake-up, rejuvenation program.  Ba Da Juin (or something like that).  Some of the passengers took this very seriously.  What they should have done was conducted relaxation therapy in preparation for Bayuin.

We moved from the plane to the mobile gangway as usual and made it inside the terminal to be directed out a side door, down onto the tarmac and into a bus to be transported to a different entrance.  Interesting.  Back inside to modernity, air conditioning, escalators and all the usual things you’d expect for a terminal, except any clear signage.  We finally found the departure area to be told our flight wouldn’t be on the board for a couple of hours, so come back to find out the gate number then.

OK, six hours to kill.  Shopping!  Hmm, I only had Euros on me and my debit cards were also in Euros.  There was not a currency exchange desk to be seen anywhere.  The same for an ATM.  No shopping.  How about the internet?  There was no sign to advertise the free internet service, but our phones and computer picked it up.  Although that was also dependent on where you were in the terminal.  As is usual, you needed to join the network and then came the glitch.  Once you had signed on they would send the password to your mobile.  Only if you had a local number, the service didn’t support numbers that required data roaming.  No internet either.  Cait made the most of it and had a sleep on the floor.

To pass the time and relieve the boredom I started doing laps of the terminal.  The shops sold interesting things … elephant tusks from fully-grown elephants, bad souvenirs, cheap Italian wine, cigars, cigarettes and lots of kitsch.  There were a couple of things that I wanted to photograph, but you weren’t allowed to use a camera ANYWHERE in the terminal.

Our plane finally made the board but it was departing from the downstairs gate.  I wandered down to have a look.  It was over-crowded and noisy.  We waited upstairs for another hour and ventured down to our bay two hours before flight time.  It was still packed and even noisier.  Why is that the Chinese and Africans can’t conduct a conversation without yelling?  There were people yelling into mobile phones, there were people having conversations across the terminal, 10 metres from each other.  Even those sitting close felt the need to yell.  At the back end of almost 20 hours without sleep it was getting a bit much for me.

Just to cap it all off, the plane was late.  Finally we got the boarding call and headed for the gate to board another bus to be ferried to other side of the terminal while just about every gate upstairs was vacant.  Not sure why.

After getting up in Sydney at 5:30am the second leg of our flight left China about 3am (Sydney time).  In twelve hours we’ll in be France.