For someone who’s racked up quite a number of miles in the recent decade, I am quite horrible when it comes to preparing well for traveling. A few examples of my travel mishaps purely due to stupidity and laziness include:
– Remembering the wrong date for a flight and ended up staying in a different city one day longer than planned. As a result missed a bachelorette party in the Bahamas.
– Sat at the gate for the wrong airline for four hours and only discovered I was at the wrong terminal when I tried to get in the plane. Spent a night at the Narita Airport hotel.
– Arrived at the check-in counter in Kuala Lumpur for a flight to Sydney. Without a visa. Thankfully was able to apply for an ETA online right away.
My newest example of what not to do happened today and gave me quite a scare. I was quite proud of myself for having printed out my visa on arrival for Myanmar a week before, along with all my confirmation emails for hotels and flights. Then as I did my last minute packing at 11PM for my 7AM flight, I realized I left the entire packet at the office. I debated whether to go back to the office, then decided that I would have time to print out my visa docs at the Kunming airport during my 3.5 hour layover.
After a delayed long flight, I arrived at the Kunming airport 2.5 hours before my flight to Mandalay. The transfer desk said that I must have printed documents for them to issue my boarding pass, then informed me that there was no where to print in the airport. They gave me a couple of places to try, so I went to the information desk and the airport hotel, and somehow they both had broken printers. I found an office where i saw a printer but was again rejected, without any reason. I was still hopeful and went to the China Eastern desk, where a terribly rude lady flat out told me I wouldn’t be able to leave today without the print outs and rejected all my proposals as to where I can find a printer within the hour. She did helpfully look up the same flight for tomorrow and let me know that it would cost me $150 to change my flight. She almost seemed happy to see my frustration.
At this point I only had 1.5 hour before my flight, and the airport was an hour outside of the city with little in between. I refused to accept my fate, and decided there’s got to be a hotel close by that’s decent enough to have a printer. I was in luck. As soon as I walked out of the terminal, I saw a nice big building not too far in the distance. After failing to get a cab to drive such a short distance, a nice attendant told me to take the airport employee bus. I didn’t have any issues finding a business center and a nice woman to print my document, and got back to the airport with time to spare.
As I walked past the China Eastern desk and saw the rude lady again, there was a sense of vindication and I secretly smiled inside. There was a part of me that wanted to go up to her and say “nothing is impossible.”
This is yet another lesson for me to be more prepared in all things, especially in international travel. While I’m no longer angry, I kind of feel sad for the rude lady. She must really dislike her own life to find satisfaction in other people’s misfortune.
After that ordeal, as I sit here waiting for yet another delayed flight, I actually feel quite fortunate to be sitting here at all. See, it’s all about perspective 🙂
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