Heat, hijinks and X-Ray monkeys

Before I get into today’s post, I just want to give a HUGE thank-you to everyone who reads this blog regularly and has actually stuck around! I found out just a couple of days ago when I got back from my travels that I now have 50 folks following this little mad-house of mine (and I even got this neat little image to add to my site! Sweet!). Thank you all, cheers!

[Authors Note : please bear with my ramblings, this is not a negative/downer post, it just seems like that until I get my act together and get to the bloody point. For those who come here often, thank you!

Home, sweet home…

Nothing quite like the sun-baked…well, everything… of your own home-town right? It’s been nice to be back since the last weekend and enjoy the sultry 40-odd degree-Celsius (104˚F for all you who follow that) temperatures, the gusts of mostly dry and moisture sucking winds and so much more… it’s good to be back!

[Editorial update para, this post is a week overdue so…yeah, sorry] And now, I’m overjoyed to report that it’s raining like hell the last couple of days and the monsoons are finally here!! The weather has improved, skies are beautifully cloudy, the oh-so-lovely rain (I’m a very “water” person) has washed the world clean around me (relatively speaking) and everyone seems to mostly be feeling a little more chipper and a little lesser murder. Ah, the perfect time, when the fresh rain cools us off before the sun returns with a vengeance and humidifies the crap out of us!

Random find, funky image. Google rules! 😀

But then again, China wasn’t exactly a cup of tea either – I reached Shanghai (my only port of call there this time sadly) and was quite surprised and intrigued by the development and change in China and the current state of things.But that being a different posts worth of talking, let’s stick to the topic at hand.

It was frakking hot! Not only that, but it was rainy as hell and the humidity made it so bad that sleeping in my hotel room with the A/C cranked to 19˚C  (66˚F, aren’t I oh-so helpful!) and no covers on, I was close to dying and had trouble falling asleep and would sweat if I stayed in one position long enough for the mattress/pillow under me to heat up. Seriously. It was that bad! So yeah, even with the discomfort of higher temperatures, I’ll take the dry heat here anyday… at least for the moment, now that the monsoon rains will start here and rainy season will be upon me. And then I’ll start dying here too… So much to look forward to!

BUT, before you think this is really IS a morose post, it’s not. In fact I’ve been in a bit of a generally up-beat mood for the past couple of days. Trying to get a little more discipline into my life in terms of not just my writing and such, but also in terms of trying to be healthier and exercising in the mornings and such.

So far, so good. I even took my annoyance while in transit (both ways and through Hong Kong) over various things and compiled a list of what I think are some really funny things about travelling by air – retrospectively of course. When you’re actually going through it you want to kill someone, anyone. So hope this gives you a chuckle or two, my list of why air-travel blows:

1) Bag weight limits and people with massive loads and strange luggage. I don’t think I even need to explain this but seriously, do most folks live in ignorance or denial? I keep being told that many people are new to air-travel when I get annoyed/amused at folks who seem to simply not get the notion that you have a weight limit or that you can’t carry random sized big-bags into the cabin and love to argue about it like this is news. Ok, either you’re a complete hick who’s never been on a plane (which when I observe these folks, I think they really aren’t THAT new to it) or you are ignorant and incapable of learning simple stuff OR you really are just dense and deserving of a few smacks upside the back of your head every time.

2) The insane security checks including removal of ALL items and the tension of doing it fast enough, even though you don’t need to : come on, which one of us hasn’t gotten alternately amused, annoyed, aggravated, bored, etc, etc at this practice? The guys especially will know the silliness of this where you are removing EVERY SINGLE THING except your top, bottom and underwear – and socks. And people STILL get angry at this. And they STILL DON’T DO IT RIGHT!?!
This is an extension of the idiot point from #1 where so many of these folks will do things like unload a mountain of stuff into their hand-bag, put it through the x-ray and then proceed to step through the metal-detector with something like their wallet or a necklace or a pack of keys… I mean really… I’ve even come across folks who won’t put their wallet into the bag and send it through that little x-ray scanner because they’re afraid someone will take their money. Right. Because there are secret monkey agents hidden inside the  scanner who wait for your bag to come through and swiftly whisk out your wallet, empty it and put it back. These people all, also deserve a resounding smack upside the head.

3) Things like liquids and objects that cause log-jams in security checks and the frakking morons who cause them – the illiterate/ignorant and the douche both. Actually this one’s just another carry-forward from the last point. I think in stuff like this they are a little over-board in airplane security but to me it doesn’t matter much really, not worth getting worked up over and easily avoidable. Yet, despite this being a now-old practice/system/rule, you’ll still find that lady with her special Totroise-butt extract skin tightener arguing about being able to take it through or some guy arguing about his manicure kit being confiscated as unfair (ok, I do agree that it’s unlikely anyone can hijack a plane with a cuticle cutter but that’s another story). My solution? More smacks upside the head. To be honest, it’s a great reminder and I get a laugh out of them!

4) Exiting the plane… the rush to un-seatbelt, the rush to switch on phones and the insane rush to stand and be uncomfortable while waiting for disembarkation. I REALLY don’t get this one. Let the plane stop, dock and then slowly get out in the order you are closest to the plane till the furthest. It would really be a simple act of courtesy, let whoever is in front of you go first and so on and so forth. But no. EVERYONE has to to unbuckle their seat-belts (as if they’re SOOO uncomfortable), switch on their cell-phones and likely start yapping away about how the food on the plane was either (a) the best single serving chicken/veg lumps or (b) most disgusting thing you’ve ever eaten or something equally irrelevant and unimportant that it shocks me how urgently they need to talk about it. It really couldn’t wait a few minutes? Really?
And of course there is the standing and waiting… and waiting… and waiting… why would you not prefer just sitting in your seat as opposed to standing awkwardly and at times painfully and being crushed bodily against others like you who’ve been cooped up in a closed plane and some who clearly need to… vent… or just frakkin bathe!!

5) Crowding the opening of the baggage carousel – Right. Because if I’m standing a little further down I won’t with the race to get my bag first. I’ll lose by a whopping 5 seconds (or something)… why is this a race? and why are we fighting for getting our luggage as soon as possible after it pops out that little hatch? We’re like greyhounds at the dog track waiting for our own special rabbit to pop out of there so we can chase it down to the point on the carousel we can pounce on it and pull it off the track. Whoever gets their kill first, wins!

I thought about including something about crying babies, but I’d start rambling about it and honestly, the schmuck inside me would start coming up with mean things to do those nice kids and their parents so I’ll let that one pass as an obvious universal annoyance… unless you have a kid of your own in which case you clearly cease to care… smack upside the head!

So I leave you all for today, and in parting, this hilarious as hell air-travel comic from The Oatmeal, a webcomic that if you’re not reading, you should be!

Cheers all!