Alrighty then. I’m obviously spending too much of my time travelling and/or making travel arrangements at the moment because I woke up this morning feeling like I’d had what could be described as a nightmare, but would probably be accurately designated as a PTSD ‘flashback’! Our travel later this year has one potentially Frightful Day O’Transit – we fly from Anchorage, Alaska to Las Vegas, Nevada with accommodation check outs and check ins, and dropping off and picking up of rental cars at each end too. The flight unfortunately leaves Anchorage at 12:35am (‘cos we had a choice of three flights that all left between midnight and 2am… apparently that’s just when they fly out of bum-fuck Alaska!), and takes three hours to Seattle, stops there for two hours and then another three hours to Las Vegas. Where we are set to arrive at 08:20am local time! No doubt we will be moderately to completely stuffed from the sleep deprivation. But at the end of this particularly arduous travel leg is a very fancy resort/hotel, with a deluxe suite, massage therapists, views of the strips, swimming pools, pillow mints and cocktails too swanky to need little umbrellas! So I’m cautiously optimistic that we shall survive the ordeal relatively intact…
However, this morning’s ‘flashback’ refers to one of the most horrid days I have ever spend travelling. I have to say ‘one of’, because I have endured several simply horrendous travel experiences – including (but not limited to) off the top of my head: a ridiculously long 40 hour transit from Quetta, Pakistan to Brisbane, Australia which included 9 hours of being locked OUT of the Islamabad International Airport, surrounded by men leering at the blonde Western Whore; a 15 hour bus drive into Istanbul (whereupon we got lost) with at least a dozen fellow travellers vomiting and shitting everywhere, all of whom having been stuck down with some acute gastro bug; and an unexpected layover in Bahrain (while dressed in shorts and singlet top!), that involved body searches and AK-47s at the airport, enroute to London, due to a passenger having a heart attack on the plane over Tehran!
But this ‘flashback’ was about Edinburgh… It was 1995 and we had been travelling for about four or five months through Europe. We had done a 70 day Grand European Tour, a quick week pisshead’s drinking tour around Wales and a great week or so in Ireland where we travelled from historical sites and pubs, to more historical sites and more pubs! Ireland was awesome. Getting there however – by car – was less so. We had a Plan – I have no idea whose Plan it was any more… and besides, it was so very long ago, we probably shouldn’t be bothered placing blame at this stage; that is to say, I may, or may not, have been partially or completely responsible for the Plan in question, as I have no recollection of the lead up to these events. So yes, a Plan to leave Dublin via vehicular ferry, and then drive directly to Edinburgh without Passing Go and definitely no Collecting £200. Sounds okay, right? Until I mention that the vehicular ferry left Dublin at 03:00am and the crossing to Holyhead (near Bangor) took approx. 3 hours via ferry, which was then followed up by a 640km, 8hr drive to Edinburgh… a trip for which I was the only licensed driver! :/
But as arduous as that particular schedule was, nothing could prepare us for the monumental fuck up that occurred when we arrived, exhausted and bedraggled, early evening in Edinburgh. Back in the day – before everyone had internets, before we all used email everyday, before tripadvisor.com, before airline online booking systems, before tripit.com, hell, before everyone had global roaming mobile phones! – one used to make their travel arrangements through what we used to quaintly refer to as a ‘travel agent’. And we had one back in Brisbane who had made all our plans and whom we had been visiting for months leading up to our big trip handing her huge wads of cash. Her name might have been Tracy, and she had booked our flights, our 70 day Top Deck tour, our car hire and about three places where we definitely needed to have accommodation sorted before we got there… one of those places was Edinburgh – because we planning be there in the middle of the Edinburgh Festival to see the Military Tattoo. Somewhere along the line, BigSal had contacted Tracey (via exorbitantly expensive international phone calls) and asked her to extend our stay at the Edinburgh hotel we had booked… we had an address, but no direct phone contact details and the booking had to be altered by the travel agent apparently. Anyway, we arrive in Edinburgh in one piece, having braved the nightmarish and treacherously wet, M1 and having just traversed about half the length of the UK, eyes hanging out of our heads and ready for a quick meal, a pint and an early night… only to find that Tracey had fucked up big time. Instead of extending our reservation by an extra day, there had been a communication break down, and she had CANCELLED IT!
And of course being Festival, everywhere, I mean absolutely everywhere… was completely booked out. Fark!!! Stranded in Edinburgh at their busiest time of year with no where to stay. However, while I vaguely remember being extremely tired and extremely pissed off at someone who was 15,000kms away and uncontactable, I clearly remember BigSal completely losing her shit. The poor guy behind the concierge desk at the hotel we thought we were staying at was calling around to other hotels and hostels looking for a room for us, but that all came to naught. BigSal was in tears, calling around only to discover that of course it’s the middle of the night in Australia, and also desperately calling hostels herself trying to find us a room, and we were standing around on the footpath of this place… three totally exhausted and clueless, stranded Aussie chicks who knew no on in Edinburgh… wondering what the bloody hell we were going to do, as it was starting to get rather dark.
And then, out of nowhere came a knight in shining armour… well, an Austrian in a rented Audi, but you get the idea. He too, thought he had made a reservation with the same hotel, but somewhere things had gone awry with his booking also. However, having been a frequent visitor to Edinburgh, he had a few tricks up his sleeve. He called a few B&Bs and eventually, said to us, “Ladies, don’t cry,” (this to BigSal who was absolutely at the end of her rope!), “I have found us rooms… just follow me.” So without questioning his directions, his motives, his contacts, or the price! We did just that. And after a short drive across town found ourselves in an overpriced B&B with a dodgy but clean, triple room just for us. So exhausted, so relieved. I could have kissed him… I probably did.
Let’s hope the upcoming Anchorage —> Las Vegas leg bears as little resemblance to that particular debacle as humanly possible!
PS: Once we were sufficiently revived by cider and pizza and a decent nights’ sleep… Edinburgh was fabulous, the Tattoo was awesome and the Fringe Festival was also very cool!
