Doncaster Doha err…Nairobi Done

Nairobi, Friday 2 April 2010, Good Friday.

Well as promised, a brief update on the first leg of the trip (while I have the computer on following what is happening in Free Practice 2 at the Malaysian Grand Prix)

Wednesday

East Coast managed to provide a normal service to get me from Doncaster to Kings Cross, table seat, plug point, leg room, marvellous

As predicted, negotiation the Underground Piccadilly Line with a 90ltr rucksack and my camera bag were slightly more troublesome, and it was not until we were well clear of Zone 2 that I managed to secure a seat!

Qatar Airways check-in was pretty straightforward (online check-in done the night before and boarding cards printed, so it was just a matter of checking my bag in). Managed not to have to get my camera bag checked for size & weight, because I think I was struggling with both (no idea how my camera bag managed to get so heavy (8kg, on a 7kg limit) – lots of tiny bits adding up I suppose! Asked about the transfer at Doha (never having done a transfer flight before) and the lady at the counter confirmed that I would not see the bag again until Nairobi. I thought about adding a witty “hopefully”, but thought better of it!

So got boarded, middle block aisle seat as requested (and not a window which I usually ask for, but as this was mostly a night flight I would not be missing much). Nice Airbus A330, pretty comfortable, good legroom and width, and a young girl sitting in the next seat so no problem with space it seemed (the girls infant sister in the next seat along could become an issue if she was going to whine the whole flight, but the mom was in the other aisle seat of the block of 4 to sort her out if she did start).

Waiting to get everyone boarded, the mom calls to the cabin crew and starts to have a moan about something or other with no success. Then she calls another, then a supervisor gets called. She appears to be whining about some problem with seat allocations. The supervisor very politely advises that the flight is full and that she cannot move seats. I guess that she is been split up from someone else in their party (book ahead next time then!).

Shortly into the flight, after the 3 neighbours have gone for a stroll, they come back and the mom relocates to sit next to me. Bang goes my tiny bit of extra space, so I’m back within my seat area and relax. Cabin crew supervisor gets called again, and the mom complains that I am taking up her space! Not a word to me, and I’m definitely all arms and legs on my side of the seat divide. Cabin crew lady politely asks me to give as much room as I can, which I do (but being my size is not exactly an simple task), and leaves it at that. Then, the stupid woman gathers every pillow she can from the 3 seats and jams them against the arm rest and between the seat bases to create a barrier. I laugh it off to myself, because all she is done is narrow her own seat space and not affected mine! The cabin crew lady came through later and saw what she’d done and rolled her eyes at me, so we were on the same wavelength at least!

Later on, I got stuck at the tail of the plane while the drinks trolleys were going through, and the supervisor saw me and apologised – the lady apparently wanted more space and wanted me moved so that the 3 of them could have a row of 4 seats, but the flight was full so she refused. Then as we were closing in on Doha the supervisor tapped me on the shoulder and whispered to me that the lady had made a complaint about the supervisor refusing to move me, and asking if I would mind filling in a comment card to give my side of the story, which I gladly did. Irony is that if the silly lady had stayed in her aisle seat she would have had a lot more room that what she ended up with by moving next to me!

Thursday

Arrived at Doha shortly after 2am with not many people around, and found the Onyx Lounge (plenty of reports had warned that Doha airport is not the most exciting of places, and with a 5-6hr wait between flights I thought I might as well have some comfort). Snacks & drinks were laid on, as well as soft chairs, power points, wi-fi and a clean washroom area.

When I went back out into the terminal to find my gate, it had turned into the hectic transit hub I’d been expecting. Our gate had a flight to Dar-es-Salaam to board before ours, which I thought would be interesting as the Dar flight was due out at 0745, and our Nairobi flight at 0815. As I thought, the board went from nothing at all to last call for our flight, but most people were there ready anyway, and we left more or less on time.

From the widebody planes I’ve flown on recently it made a change to be on a 3×3 Airbus A320. This time I had got my window seat, and thanks to there being plenty of space on the flight, one of the guys in our row moved to a spare seat, giving two of us some extra room, which was great.

Despite a snooze in the Doha lounge, I was pretty knackered, so managed to sleep through the breakfast service (a shame, if the breakfasts were anything like as good as the dinner on the previous flight!). Did manage to spot the Losail circuit in Qatar where MotoGP will be starting their season in a couple of weeks. It’s miles from anywhere, and is literally a circuit in the middle of the desert. At least with Abu Dhabi the circuit was being surrounded by other things, such as the Ferrari theme park, but Losail was just the circuit.

Managed to see plenty of the north African scenery on the way in, ranging from barren sandy areas to really lush looking green plains. Obvious signs too of the heavy rainfalls that were affecting northern Kenya a few weeks ago, with large wide rivers and lakes.

Then Nairobi. Painless Visa process (fill in a badly photocopied form, answer some questions, get your pic & fingerprints done and pay your $25), bag arrived safely, then taxi to the hotel 40 minutes away.

40 minutes on a normal day. 2 hours this day because, as my taxi driver informed me, everyone had gone into town to get their shopping before everything closed for the Easter holiday. The vehicles and vans all looked battle-scarred with various bangs and bumps, which given the driving styles I saw I can understand!

Of course, get a stationary queue of traffic and you quickly get a stream of street sellers wandering through, offering everything from fruit, snacks & drinks to automobile accessories, toys, and knock-off DVDs (if they cannot interest you with the latest Disney they move on to something a tiny fruitier). You soon learn not to even bother shaking your head and just ignore them as they move onto the next automobile in the queue, plenty of fish in this particular sea!

Finally arrive at the hotel, check in, find bed and collapse. Surface later to get a snack & a beer, but just settle for a beer in the end. Some pretty torrential rain storms overnight, which if they continue could make for some interesting camping conditions over the next few days!

So, this morning is warm & grey, breakfast has been done, F1 practice has completed and now I’m going to find somewhere to chill out for the rest of the day. The hectic stuff starts tomorrow morning

Later y’all

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Submited at Friday, April 2nd, 2010 at 5:00 pm on Africa by hilman
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