Okay… so I left on Tuesday afternoon 27/06/07.. and I was expecting a horror transit with 37 hours of being stuck in planes and airports ahead of me. And let me just say right off the bat – I was not disappointed in that expectation.
It started with taking nearly an hour to get out of the Cantonment, small mix up with the security detail, and waiting around for approval to leave. When we did finally get to go, I was on a minibus with a driver, and two member of the Pakistani army carrying AK47s, Mjr Dazzles sporting a Glock 9mm and a shadow vehicle with five more army guys all with their AKs!!! Talk about overkill.
Get to the airport, luckily have no more problems with my ticket, thank Allah! Was scanned and frisked no less than 3 times before getting into the Quetta departure lounge but strangely enough was never asked for ID to see if my name matched that on my ticket! Go figure. I then sat in the lounge for about an hour, and tried to use my mobile phone… alas… Pakistan is a country with crap mobile phone reception… and sat there watching the power go out a couple of times.
Book by SMS!!! There’s a nice joke
These clowns lost my booking that was made in their office!
My flight finally boards (late as per usual), and were further delayed by the cabin crew reshuffling the business class passengers so that the little Pakistani women don’t have to sit beside strange men. If one of these flights goes down, the manifest will be useless! So instead of sitting with a spare seat beside me I end up with two veiled women alongside who spend the entire flight hanging onto the armrests and praying when ever we hit some tubulence! I found the praying particularly unnerving when we were getting ready to land I must say… and even more unnerving was the cabin crew coming on saying “Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, In’Shallah we will be landing at Islamabad airport at 5.30pm” – In’Shallah – If Allah wills it… they mean In’shallah in reference to being on time, but you cant help thinking they mean In’shallah in reference to getting there at all!
I am amazed that PIA manages to land any aircraft safely… they pressurized the cabin extremely quickly,I can only assume because we were running late, then barreled off down the run way and took off at a 30 degree incline – I’ve never been on such a steep ascent ever! And then I was amazed that even though people were told to turn off their phones, not only were they ringing during the flights, but people were answering them and the cabin crew weren’t stopping them! The descent into Islamabad was equally adventurous and we hit the runway at an alarming speed. I was not sad to see the end of my flying PIA experiences… by the end of it, I think those ladies praying under their burkas maybe had the right idea after all.
I spent the rest of the night killing time. God it was awful. I was at Islamabad airport from about 1800 and my Emirates flight to Dubai didn’t leave until 0415 the following morning. Not such a problem except they that for security reasons they wont let you into the International airport until 3 hours before your flight… so I had hours to kill.
I started off by fighting with the PIA office to get a refund for the second ticket they made me buy when they couldn’t find my booking last week. Two and a half hours wasted there…. at the end of which I was directed to the cashier’s office and not even offered an apology for the inconvenience! The rest of the night was spent hanging out in a restaurant writing letters…. still with about 30 hours to go!