Nailed by the Swine Flu...Indirectly at Least

So, the swine flu (or H1N1…sorry pig farmers) got me, sort of. China is very cautious of importing any cases so every airport or immigration station runs each person through a number of tests and makes you fill out forms about where you’ve been and where you’ll be in the last and next week, what seat you were sitting in on the plane, making sure you don’t plan on using public transit, etc. There is a Chinese saying that goes something like this: If you’ve been bitten by a snake, you will always be afraid of a rope. In this case, SARS (2003) was the snake, and H1N1 is the rope. Going into the airport, 2/3rds of the passengers had masks on. I had begun to think that I’d missed the memo. I had booked a flight from Kunming to Hong Kong then a separate flight from Hong Kong to India. Waiting for the plane in Kunming, it seemed there was something wrong. The flight was delayed for unknown reasons, creating a bit of internal conflict as I was calculating how many minutes I’d have to rush to make my India connection. Well, we boarded and I calculated that I’d have about 15 minutes to make the connection, no hope. Once on board, the captain informed us that the reason for the delay is that one of the passengers had a fever, requiring the quarantine officers to disinfect the entire plane (which I’m thankful for). By now, I was wishing I had a mask. Well, I missed my flight, but Dragon Air was able to book me on a different itinerary and get me to Ahmedabad about the same time. Here is the key information. I asked several times if they re-booked my return, because if you don’t show up for a flight, your entire itinerary is canceled. They assured me, even showing me a printout of my entire return itinerary. Unfortunately, when I was ready to return from India, Jet Air (my flight back to Hong Kong) canceled my ticket. At first they were working with me, and got me boarding passes for the flights they canceled, I was on my way, through security within eyeshot of the gate as the plane was boarding. Suddenly, the Jet Air agent intercepted me and told me to patiently wait as the ticketing had a problem. In agony, I watched the gate close and the plane leave as the agent stalled. Finally, she said that I had a non-refundable ticket and she informed me that I needed to buy a new ticket (I knew I shouldn’t where shorts to the airport, you don’t get any respect). After a bit of heated argument and showing proof that the reason I missed the flight was Dragon Air, she offered to give me a full refund, though I was still responsible for buying some last-minute international flights. So my Bombay long-layover exploration plans were shot and instead I spent the whole afternoon trying to find any airline going to Kunming or Hong Kong, that would take a credit card. By the way, in small-town India, they are generally incapable of looking up phone numbers of any air carrier that doesn’t serve the airport, like Thai air for instance. Well, I was able to land a ticket from Ahmedabad to Bombay, and find the ticket I wanted from Bombay to Bangkok, then Kunming. However, I couldn’t book this ticket…cash only in Bombay. So I boarded the plane (which was delayed again) and landed in Bombay, with less than two hours until the other plane to Bangkok left (at 10:00 pm). I rushed to the counter, the only one open, and was able to buy the ticket…cash only. It was actually relatively affordable, considering I’ve never tried to book an international one-way flight with less than two hours lead time. I ended up making it and as I was trying to sleep on a metal bench in Bangkok airport at 5am, I was thinking about that fellow with the fever in Kunming, along with all of the other countless travelers who were sleeping on benches because of “the rope”. Well, when we landed, I was praying that I didn’t have a fever, which would have put me in quarantine for a week. I tried to suppress my India cough as the officers methodically went through the plane, examining each person where they sat before we could enter into China. I guess I’m grateful for the effort though.