Airport Blues II

Happy Times pass by quickly, 14 days in Kuwait flew by before even I could blink my eye. But then again that’s how things are always. Though I dint get to see all parts of Kuwait (like the Kuwait Tower) I did go around as much as possible and armed with a Sony DSC-W50 I tried to capture every thing I saw in Kuwait.

My flight was scheduled to take off at 9.05 P.M 26^th July 2006. And I get a “sick like” feeling on the morning of the day of flight. All the packing were completed by 24^th and it wasn’t smooth either. My Mom always wanted certain things to be put into the boxes and so did I and this usually ends in conflicts about who puts what in the boxes. In the end I usually manage to sneak some little items that she doesn’t want to take :-D

After saying good bye to my Egyptian friends who lives next door in the same quarters, I came back and got dressed to go to the airport. Mom and I always fight over the dressing part too, I hate the kind of pants that is a lot of wide at the bottoms and she always wants me to wear the ones which she brought me, which is always this kind and she told me it was altered to my needs, after trying it on, it obviously wasn’t and I wasn’t in a mood to go to the airport in my underwear so I had no choice. Another thing is I always have to wear shoes to airport as though it were some kind of school. Anyway I gave into her annoying demands and got dressed up. By the time the luggage guy whom we had called to take the big luggage away since we were going in a car and could not accommodate the big luggage.

I took one final photo of the Sunset.in Ahmadi as it might be the last I see in Kuwait and I set off to the airport (Most these photos were captured while I was in motion so some of them might be blurry)

The Last Sunset :-(

As we neared the airport I could see flights continuously taking off from the runway.

Next we came to the entrance and our luggage arrived shortly after and we wrapped our luggage in protective plastic (a service provided by the airport to protect suitcase from scratches) and then we went to the business class luggage check in (this is the 1^st time I am traveling in Business Class in any flight). Each baggage should not weigh more than 32 kg , it is a new international rule it seems.

The Trolleys at the Entrance	Wapped Luggages Set For Weighing
The Luggage Check In For Business Class	Line At Economy Class Luggage Check In

Next it was off to the shopping area to get some K.F.C as my sister was craving to eat some and was constantly nagging my mother on the phone to not to forget to buy it and bring.

Shopping Malls	Harley-Davidson Shop!!!
"Arrivals" opp the malls	Restaurent Chains

On route to “Departures” this is the sad part, once you cross the line there is no coming back. This is also were they check the weight of your hand baggage and it should not exceed 5 kg, mine was clearly over 8 kg and I was carrying a shoulder bag with my “PlayStation 2” in it. Luckily we slipped through when the guy was checking another passenger’s baggage.

My Plane is 3rd from bottom

Path To the Departure Gate

The Depature Gate

More shopping this time in the “Duty Free Shops” this is inside the airport and apart from money you also have to have your boarding pass before you can buy anything from here. This time shopping was for chocolate. Yum Yum!!

The Entrance

Its a long Stretch with all kinds of things

Now we had to go to our boarding gate and it was written as “1” on our boarding pass, now this was to the left of the Duty Free Shops and we went in that direction, but I remembered seeing on the departure screen that it was Gate 20. Anyway we proceeded, on reaching there we saw that I was the wrong Gate and that flight was boarding to “Chennai”. The bad news was not the lack of time but we had to walk to the diametrically opposite end from the point where we were standing to reach the Gate 20. No choice but to carry the 10 kg baggage and swing it across to the other end. On reaching there we had to pass through the security check and on the other side a person mistakenly took one of our covers and went to the waiting area then we had to go back and get it back from the person and later on we caught a seat and rested a while after the running around.

The Boarding Gate

Usually the journey from the Boarding Gate to the plane is via a Passage way leading to the plane entrance but for us it was a bus ride to the plane, hmm…may be a sign that this is your last visit and let this be different from all other journey from Kuwait. Finally we boarded the plane and took our seats and just about when the plane was about to take off one of the in-flight staff noticed water leak in the toilet (first time that happened after all these years of travel in Kuwait Airways). Anyway the plane was brought back to the airport and the maintenance crew got to work on it. It took about 1 hour for the entire procedure to be completed, implies 1 hour delay. In the meanwhile I captured some photos inside of the plane

Shot of airport taken from Inside	Another Shot
Business Class Seating	Arabic Coffee is pretty Strong!!!

Finally with everything fixed and ready to go, the plane made it to the run way and took off. During the take off I could see the entire Kuwait from the plane window and the scene was pretty beautiful and I captured some it in my camera.

Night Kuwait From the Sky - In the middle you can see a harbour and towards the top you can see the coastline

Rest of the flight was pretty much uneventful. Though I did enjoy the features of the Business Class compared to the economy class. The main differences could be summed up as follows

• More Leg Space
• Fully Adjustable Seat (Forward Backward, Up Down, Lean Straight)
• Menu was given for Meal (Veg or Non Veg)
• Meal was served in Ceramic Dishes with Metallic Fork, Spoon and Knife
• Different kinds of bread was offered with meal (only one kind was given in economy class)
• A Gift Pack (containing a Pen)
• Regular Drinks
• Fresh Towels to wipe your face

Around 1.5 hours before landing they offered us coffee and just about that time we passed over a turbulent area and the plane was shaking all over and the coffee got spilled a bit. Other than that the ride was pretty smooth.

By about 5.30 AM IST we reached the Trivandrum International Airport. There was drizzle out side and it did rain heavily early in the morning.

Shot of Trivandrum Airport

Just when I was about walk over and take my hand baggage I felt a very sharp pain in the knee probably due to some blow I got in that area may be in the past two days I don’t remember exactly how but the pain was pretty bad. The Business Class was the 1^st to be let out and we also had an exclusive bus to take us to the airport. The immigration check was over in about 15 minutes. Then it was the wait for the luggage. It took another 15 minutes for that and I had to drag the entire luggage (4 Suitcases) to the trolley. Then it was to customs check, this is the hard part since if they suspected that we carried any electronic items it time to pay duty to them. But my mother and I was called to the green channel and the guy asked us if we had any electronics items (remember I was carrying a PlayStation 2 in my shoulder bag and the digital camera was in my mother’s purse) and we both said “No”, then the guy kept asking about gold, whether we had any gold other than the ones my mother was wearing and he was asking this repeatedly. I think they were on the outlook for gold and not electronics stuff.

We walked out of the airport and saw my father at the end of the “Arrivals” line waiting for us. We placed the luggage in the Vehicle and set off to our house.

More Details of my visit to Kuwait Coming soon...