Flying over history

I love this view of the ancient standing tall and strong--same as it has for eight centuries--as modern travelers fly over it.
Some towers stand a long time.

Island airport

The Bali airport is built right out into the edge of the sea.

So when you come down to land, the water rushes up beneath you.

And suddenly there's the runway, out in the water.

It's a pretty cool thing to soar over the fishermen and feel like you're about to skim to a stop on water.

Pilot strike

Our boat engine had broken down.
Our taxi broke down.
So, when we arrived at our hotel in Kochi, I said, "Now what can go wrong here?"
Well.
I should have held my tongue.

It's true that we did enjoy a relaxing day and a half of sightseeing. But then it was time to focus on what I knew was happening in the outside world: an Air India pilot strike.

I was hoping they would get it worked out before our flight. They didn't.
A thorough check of the situation left little doubt that our flight was one of the many canceled.
Our choice? Learn to like Kochi a lot for the next few days, or take matters into our own hands and stay ahead of the trouble.

It was 2:00 in the afternoon, so I checked out the evening flights: if we were speedy, we could catch one and arrive in Delhi by midnight. But it meant the end of our relaxing, and a short night's sleep--better than dealing with an airline in chaos, though, so we took the opportunity, packed up super fast, and avoided Air India.

A day or so later, the strike ended and didn't affect any more of our trip--what a relief.
Usually we wouldn't choose to fly AI when there are so many other good, budget airlines out there. I would say our instincts have been right about that all these years, it was way more drama than we were hoping for.

Things not allowed

Have you tried durian?
If you have, then you probably know how it smells.

I must say that the first time I tried durian, I didn't notice the smell at all. We were out on the streets of Thailand in a rather pungent market area and everything smelled somewhat unpleasant. My friend and I had been walking down the street and she would buy one fruit after another and give me some to try. She is a fruit-lover and was in heaven in Thailand where sweet, ripe and colorful fruit is abundant.
So we were walking down the street and I tried all kinds of things I'd never seen before.
Yes, there was a bit of mischief in her look when she handed me the durian, but I'd never before heard of the stinky fruit. I trusted her and bit into it.
I know it's odd that I didn't notice the smell. But what I did notice was it's similarity to muskmelon, which I don't care for. The others with us were disappointed with my reaction--or lack thereof.

Here in the hotel where I am staying, durian is not allowed. It's too smelly for this professional, clean establishment.


Speaking of things not allowed, I have a tangent:
On a recent flight, there was a girl who sat near to me. During the flight she got up and went to the back. After only a few moments she returned and whispered to one of the flight attendants. "No," he loudly replied, "This is a non-smoking flight. There is no where for you to smoke."
"Where are you from?" asked another attendant.
"Russia."
"Ahhh," the flight attendants nodded and looked at one another, "Most flights throughout the world are now non-smoking. It is banned internationally."
I didn't know Russians were unaware of this. Or that they could smoke on their airplanes.
Huh.

Serendipitious orchestration

I just lived through a day orchestrated to bring us to Mexican food--good Mexican food.
Our plan today, my friend and I, was to go to a certain market where there was supposed to be a nice bookstore and a really good (dare-we-hope: authentic) Mexican restaurant. Good Mexican food is a rarity on this side of the world.
We found the bookstore. It was as expected. Not fantastic, but had books.
Now it was time to eat.
We found all the signage for the restaurant we wanted to go to, but where was the entrance?
"Oh that place is finished," said the guard we asked.
"Finished?"
"Finished."
Sad, sad news. No Mexican for lunch.
We found a coffee shop to eat at before we melted and returned to my house.

Meanwhile, my friend's husband was supposed to be leaving on a plane. But the plane's airconditioning was broken and they were sitting out on the tarmac in 104 degrees unable to leave. Several hours later they deplaned all the passengers and moved them to a 5 star hotel in the north of the city.
A 5 star hotel? Hmm. This might be our only opportunity to go see what it's like inside...
Our "only choice", then, was to head there as soon as nap time for her one year old was over.

Riding in autos is hard, tiring work. But that's what we ended up in.
The call to the taxi to take us to the fancy hotel was at 4:20pm. The dispatcher said: "There is no taxi available for half an hour. 5 o'clock it will come for you."
That was very bad math and not half an hour. But I agreed.
At 5:15 I called the driver and went through extensive directions on how to get to my house. Twenty minutes later I called and asked the driver where he was. The name of the location he gave me was about half an hour away.
What!
Okay, cancel that taxi service.

Now what do we do? It would be fun to go see the 5 star hotel that we wouldn't normally have opportunity to go see. But it was getting late. We would have to have time to come back for the kid's bedtime.
Our new plan? Walk out of the neighborhood and find our own taxi. If we can't get one, we walk a little further and end up at the Chinese restaurant nearby.
As we walked along, an auto passed us asking where we wanted to go? An auto wasn't in the plan. Because it was hot and we were tired and we didn't want to over-tire the kid before we'd even gotten anywhere. But there was the auto...
With a reasonable price.
We looked at each other.
We took it.
So we didn't exactly arrive at the five star hotel looking as if we belonged there, but they let us in anyway.
We walked through the lobby (unimpressive) and put our feet in the pool (slightly impressive). Then we headed out again to find dinner.
We thought we would go to a nearby pizza place and we got an auto to go there. I told him which block to take us to and when he pulled up, what did I see? A sign for Sancho's, the Mexican restaurant we'd been trying to find at lunch time.
"There's Sancho's," I said.
My friend misheard me to say, "There's a sandpit." Which was also true. Because all in front of the restaurant was construction and sand and a great big hole--no way for us to walk through.
The driver, though, showed us the path where people were walking through the construction site.
So my friend and I stood outside the Mexican restaurant and had this short conversation:
"We came here for pizza, but there's Sancho's. Which one do you want to go to?"
"Well, we know what pizza tastes like, we haven't tried Sancho's."
"Right. Let's go."
When we stepped inside and were told they had a baby chair, we knew we had arrived. A marvelous baby chair. Even though I had to eat with one hand while I held my fingers on the latch to keep the tray down and the kid from escaping.
That, and the excellent food with real cheese and real sour cream made all we had been through throughout the day totally worth it to end up here.
Disappointment at lunch time.
Waiting and waiting for a taxi that never showed up.
A plane with air conditioning that didn't work.
A visit to a 5 star hotel.
A search for pizza because we hadn't been successful at lunch.
It had all brought us here.
"That's what you call 'serendipity'," I said.
"No," replied my friend, "That's what you call the orchestration of a good God who knew exactly what we needed."
Absolutely.

From the airplane window

There's a pretty good view of the Himalya out the window of the airplane as it flies over.

Especially this time of year when even the lower peaks are snow covered.