Month: April 2010

Another waking up early to see if our flight was cancelled, yes KLM list 6 that are definitely cancelled ours to Lima is one of them………. So at 6am in the morning back on the phone to KLM China , after 20 mins we can change our flight , the earliest we can have is Friday, this is cutting it tight …. We really want to go to Machu Picchu and we are scheduled there for Sunday, this is our last chance, if this flight gets cancelled then really there is no reason to go, and then our preferred choice would be to go down to Switzerland see Mumso in Bern and then Italy for a week and come back to Amsterdam for the flight back to Beijing. E mails are sent to family and our handling Agent in the UK, tell them of our revised plan.

On arriving back from breakfast there is a missed call and then an e mail from the handling Agent in the UK, KLM has a flight out of Schippld at 13.45 to Panama and the we could get a connecting flight from another airline to Peru…….. it is now 10.30 (T-3.15).

The “Overnight” hotel suddenly broke into a true ops room, chief comms officer Major Penfold, was aided by Private Paddington and resident babel fish Sunders of the now lower 5th, , Major hit the redial key to KLM China, ………. Operation Panama Jack “The Great Escape” started ……..

The Major handled UK telecoms and the PC (well one has to do facebook updates), Sunders was charged with dealing with all foreign comms and logistical packing, Private Paddington was just too excited that he may get the chance to see his auntie promptly fainted, dammm we forgot to bring a marmalade sandwich up from breakfast…….

Time is now ticking T -3.00, phone lines are hot, multiple calls are in progress, Sunders is rearranging the KLM leg, can we get on the flight to Panama …….. minutes tick by … yes, a shout from across the room

S: Penfold we can get on

Penfold (P) on the phone to UK handling agent: yes we can get on, can you arrange Panama – lima leg

Handling agent: yes, there are seats I will book now for you

P to S: it’s a go go … change the flights

S to KLM china: yes change the booking , send us e mail confirmation

Private Paddington is still out at this time dreaming of marmalade sandwiches

KLM China to S: I have changed your flights to go to Panama today flight leaves at 1.45pm, I will send e mail confirmation but it may take an hour …….

The IT may take an hour and us living in China should have sent a warning signal to us …..

Sunders jumps onto internal hotel phone: we want to check out now and we want a taxi

Reception: a taxi will be here in 15 mins and we will make the bill up for you …….

Paddington wakes up and is promptly pushed back in the bag amongst the undies ……

I am now thinking shit ….. I was getting used to another few nights in the dam ……. Now suddenly we are going to another country and if Interpol is monitoring us, they may think we are drug runners …. Amsterdam – Panama – Peru … lets hope we don’t get diverted to Columbia !!

T- 2.15 Bags packed in less than 10 mins, straight to reception …… woahhhhhhhhh where did these people come from ? a line of around 30 people all queuing to be checked in … how ? just how ? there are no incoming flights where did these people come from ? Sunders bowls to the front of the queue, she may be small but her words are deadly ……..

S: we want to check out

Girl at front desk: look there is a big queue

S: We have to catch a flight and a taxi is waiting for us

Then came the lawyer stare over the glasses…

Woman backs down: we have your details, go and catch your flight

After running through the lobby, bags are in the back of Ahmeds cab and we are off in reverse, T – 2.00

After some “delft’ or was it deft driving by Ahmend who was trying to arrange the delivery of his new T mobile sim card to his mother in laws at the same time, and some minor driving illegalities, we get to Schipold, and the after trying the automatic check in …… we both fail, so join the snake T -1.45.

At last T- 1.15 we arrive at a counter, ahrrr there is a problem ? counter dude guy (cdg) says

S: trying her best over looking the glasses routine: a problem

Cdg: yes I will get my collegue here to help , she is a ticket agent

After a lot of dutch words and sunders translating for me, it appears we can’t fly into Panama without a ticket going out and it has to be booked by KLM !!!!!!! and China KLM have not confirmed our flights, and then T- suddenly changes….

Cdg: you have to get your UK ticket agent to talk to KLM china …..

Ho le fook I thought ( and no that was not Cantonese) this is never going to happen

Cdg: oh and check in for your flight closes at 1.08pm

A quick look at the watch I am not wearing it is 12.40 now it is T- 0.28 !!!!

Comms out, phone calls to UK handling Agent and KLM China.

OK Ground UK handling Agent sends over a e booking ref number for the leg from Panama to Lima

We go back in queue T – 0.16 and someone is in front of us …………

T – 0.10 we get to counter

S: here is our e ticket number for Panama to Lima

Cgd calls over to Kewl ticket handling guy (Mr kewl) ( this guy is cooler than the Ice man Bergkampl)

S: we have an e ticket number it is here

Mr Kewl: I can see that

S: but do you want the numbers

P: Sunders he has access to the ticket system he can see the ticket on his screen

Mr Kewl and Cdg talk in dutch, sunders translates to me

We needed to have the tickets both organized through KLM,

T -0.02

Mr kewl is writing out hand written tickets as you can’t fly to Panama on an e ticket

Mr Kewl some how fudges the ticket system so it appears both legs of the flights are booked via KLM

It is now T zero !!!!!

Mr kewl walks off saying he has earnt his salary today !!!!

Cdg …. Don’t worry I have phoned ground handling you are on the flight, I have asked for permission it is now T +0.05 !!!

The race is now on through passport control, where the woman in front with a baby is discussing the problems of travelling with small children and how their passport pictures never look like them, and run … why oh why is our gate at the furthest end of the terminal ?

We get there … through security and then running towards the airbridge we hear the word SUNDERLAND being shouted out ……

We turn round , people are walking towards us …. I am thinking what has the squeaky clean sunders done ?

My heart is already racing …. As we walk towards the uniforms ….

Uniforms: do you have a ticket ? a piece of paper for me ?

Phew all they wanted was Mr Kewls hand written ticket !!

Finally we board, we have escaped the ash ……

What a few hours that was …. But I must say with the exception of the Head of Baggage (Sunday afternoon shift) the people of Amsterdam and staff of KLM have been really great, never have I experienced such kindness and calmness in the face adversity, they are genuinely nice people. Well done KLM and Amsterdam.

Mr Kewl the Ticket Agent and Checkin Guy dude thank you so much ……..

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  Sunders of the lower 5th looking very pleased with herself after geting on a near empty flight to Panama
 
So as I sit here on route to Panama I am wondering what else is going to happen when we arrive in Gun City …

Two hours later ……..

Seems the wind gods are against us, as due to strong head winds the flight is taking longer than expected and we are due to arrive a minute after our connecting flight leaves for Peru.

Arrive in Panama, to find that we have been transferred on to a later flight, so an hours wait and we are off on a 3 hour hop from Panama to Lima … which was to be our destination last Friday.

At last!!!! after a five day delay we are in Lima, its warm well no hot and humid rather like Hong Kong, its 12.30am, our Lima Ground Handler meets us and takes us to the hotel which is a mare 20 metres from the arrival hall……

Welcome to Lima …… now I check you into your hotel and will meet you at 7.30 am ready to take you to the airport for your next flight to Cusco tomorrow morning… everything is arranged for you in Cusco.

So just where is this ash cloud ?

After yesterdays “discussions” with the Head of Baggage (Schiphol Sunday evening shift), we set forth to retrieve our luggage. Queues at Amsterdam Central station were out of the door, with people attempting to buy tickets to just about anywhere. Announcements over the tannoy system “We are sorry for the untidiness of the station this is due to the cleaning company being on strike so the station is not as beautiful as it should be”. Being told that it was impossible to buy a railway ticket with notes and our credit cards not working , because we don’t have Chip and Pin, we scraped around to find 7.60 Euro. Finally after buying a Starbucks the correct change was found and we boarded the train to Schiphol for the short 15 min ride.

Arriving at the airport, the experience was one of calmness, nowhere was any one worried or rushing, even in the train ticket queue where the 50 or so people lined up to purchase tickets anywhere out of the Netherlands.

On of the railway staff was standing there with a megaphone ..

“ if you wish to travel to France you can buy a ticket here which will be valid for travel tomorrow, we cannot guarantee that you will get a ticket further than Paris as there are strikes in France” A thought flashed through my head , “nothing new there”

“If you wish to travel to Germany, you buy a ticket today for tomorrow, but when you get to the German station, you will find the same problem as here”

“There are no tickets to anywhere today”

Oh well any contingency plans that we had should our flight be cancelled tomorrow, may have to go on hold. So after finding door C16, as directed we were faced with an electric door, a long walk to an official behind a PC screen

After showing our baggage tags from last Thursday a door suddenly opened and there facing us was baggage carousel C14 …… about 20 passengers either looking for their bags or sitting around waiting hopefully and about 20 KLM staff, no Head of Baggage (Sunday Evening Shift) could be seen.

Sitting on the floor around 50 various cases and baggage and right at the front in the middle were one shocking pink and one acrid green North Face duffels, which looked surprisingly like our bags that were not meant to be anywhere in Schiphol. I think Head of Baggage (Sunday Evening Shift) must have spent too much time in a coffee shop, because in a sea of black luggage these bags looked like they had been having some mushroom spores…..

So bags liberated we set back to Amsterdam Central where we could buy a ticket from a human, although the price had risen by 1 euro over the space of 90 mins from 7.6 euro to 8.6 euro !!!

On arriving back at the Hotel, Helen immediately broke open her bag to release Private Paddington, from his false imprisonment amongst her undies….

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Private Paddington finally sees the light of day
 
So with retrieved clothes a quick change was in order to freshen up ………..
 
Mean while
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Private Paddington was writing his complaint e mail to the Icelandic PM

Woke up at 4am to check the status of flights, yes as expected we were cancelled. On trying the Holland KLM customer service number, there was an automated response that said Thank you for calling , please check the KLM web site for flight updates,and you may also change your booking, we can’t help you anymore, goodbye and then the phone went dead !. Could the KLM web site help , no …. So thinking out of the box we sat on hold with China KLM and low and behold after a 15 min wait we got through to someone who could change our flight, we opted for a Tuesday flight out of the dam to Peru, and feeling rather pleased with ourselves we then started to try and find our luggage…..

Dam time 9.30am : after getting pushed around 5 different departments we are given the number of the Customer Manager , we explain our situation and tell her that you can’t miss our bags, they are North Face duffels, Shocking Pink and Acrid Green so bright that if a space cadet could find them in a dark roomed coffee shop. She said that would be helpful and she would ring us back.

Dam time 3.30pm : we are sitting in a sports bar, watching three games of football with lots of dutch guys, it seems that the top two teams are playing in separate games and with only two games left of the season, FC Twente are top of the league and the local team Ajax a mere point behind …. However our eyes were firmly fixed on a game in North West England Wigan v Arsenal, Arsenal were playing badly but 0 – 2 up. And I was fairly happy feasting myself on BitterBallen a local type of fried meatball. Helen decided to ring back the luggage people only to fond that a man had replaced the woman on duty and he had only just come on duty (2pm) but he knew that we had North Face bags and they were looking for them and he would ring back in an hour …..

Dam time 4.30pm : what had we just witnessed in the last hour?, from 0- 2 up against a team that didn’t shoot suddenly in the last 10 minutes we rolled over 3 -2 … we lost !! dumfounded we left the bar, I couldn’t speak what could be worse ……….. it was about to come.

So the guy never called back, back at the Hotel, the clever linguistic skills of a lawyer was needed, and we just happened to have one with us, an Attorney, called to the bar in New York no less ( the only time I would be called to a bar is to pay for the next round.) Helen “Sunders” Sunderland of the lower 4th steps forward and takes the phone.

Sunders (S): Hello, we phoned up this morning we were in transit from Beijing to Peru

Man on the Phone (MoP): can you wait , I am on a conference call with my Boss

S: OK

Some five mintues later and a dropped line

MoP: oh sorry was on call with my boss

S: ok, well we are in transit from Beijing to Lima, your colleague said she would call us back about our bags—

MoP: what colleague I don’t know any colleague I only came on duty at 2 I have no idea

S: ok well she said she would pass on the message, have you found the luggage? We have been expecting a call for 12 hours its now 10pm

MoP: oh well no yes I passed on to my luggage guys that is their fault they didn’t call. Your bags are not anywhere in Schipol

S: are you saying that our luggage is not in the airport? Coz we are not in KLM system or being looked after by KLM so any internal bulletins you are putting up in airport hotels will not reach us

MoP: yes, you will have to contact China

S: how can this be , our luggage was checked through to Peru, have you checked

MoP: yes, we have checked the Beijing , Shanghai pile and it is not there , we have checked the warehouse, it is not there.

S: have you checked on the computer ?

MoP: Yes, you will have to ring customer services

S: we have tired and it is an automated message and then you get cut off, do you have another number for customer services

MoP: no

S: ok. So if you wanted to speak to customer services, which number would You ring ?

MoP: I’m not giving you that number

S: so you are telling me to ring customer services and you can’t give me a number for customer services ?

MoP: yes

S: you are an international organization, but the public customer services number isn’t being answered and you refuse to give me the number for customer services

MoP yes

S: so how should we reach customer services?

MoP: you must ring customer services we aren’t customer services we just move bags inside schiphol from arrival to destination

S: ok what is your name ?

MoP: Mr f xxxxxxx Yxxxxxx

S: and what is your role ?

MoP: I am Head of Baggage Handling

S: can I quote you on that ? that per Mr fxxx Yxxxx, there is no customer service number

MoP: er yes you can quote me on that

S: ok

[line goes dead due to “technical problems in dutch”]( too many space cakes we think )

S: hello I rang earlier

MoP: oh yes I’m sorry my mobile phone went dead

S: ok so what do you suggest we do ? can I give you the baggage tag numbers again and you can check the computer ?

MoP: there are no bags in the computer

S: no bags at all?

MoP: no there are no bags in the computer. My guys did a manual search and your bags are not at schipol

S: where are they?

MoP: I don’t know but they are not at schiphol

S: so you Head of Baggage for Schipold Airport and you don’t have access to the baggage handling system computer and your on a mobile phone /

MoP: yes I don’t have access to the system

S; so as head of baggage what do you ACTUALLY do ?

MoP; I move bags from one side of the airport to the other

S:Thank you

Phones put down, so It seems our baggage could be anywhere, but I am guessing this guy is actually a no body and has no idea of anything or on space cakes ………

Impressed, Sunders of the lower 4th is good, think maybe she should be moved to the lower 5th ……. Anyway we are really no further forward so a trip to the airport is in order tomorrow.

Evening went to Envy ( http://www.envy.nl/) , a really nice restaurant a few hundred yards from the hotel, for once a restaurant, with no Michelin stars and the food was some what better than mine, and much better than their sister restaurant Nomades ( http://www.restaurantnomads.nl/flash/in.htm ) which we tried on Friday night.

A pretty relaxed affair leaving the Jing, saying good bye to Misha Deux, and organising her daily visit from the cat sitter….

A typical wait on the runaway that one experinces here in China ( only 35mins) and then off to Amsterdam , for the first leg of what should be a decent vacation hiking in Peru to Machu Picchu via Soraypampa, Huayraccmachy, Collpapampa, Lucumabamba and Aguas Calientes ….  followed by a cruise down the Amazon.

However about an hour out of Amsterdam , was the first sign of the warnings … from the captain the following messgae was broad casted “passengers flying on from Amsterdam to London and other european desinations were advised to contact ground handlers and Amsterdam airport was shutting down at 7pm….” in fact we did not understand it in english, it was only when it was further annouced in mandarin did we understand what was happening. Our first thoughts we a terrorist incident but on speaking to one of the cabin crew we were told , in a misture of english and madarin ( this is bizzare as we are on a KLM aircraft) that there was a volcanic erruption and aircraft can not fly through such things as ash ..

As we were overnighting in Amsterdam we did not worry, our baggage was checked through to Lima and so with small back pack off we went to our “overnight” hotel.

It was the at the hotel and listening to the news that finally we realised our “overnight” hotel may not just be an overnight stop.

Well as you know the aim of Chris Tour 09 was to go away once a month during 2009,
did I achieve this ? well almost … with the exception of June ( when I moved homes) , here is a full list of the places visited

• The Great Wall (commune by the Great Wall)
• Thailand (2)
• Shanghai (3)
• Hong Kong (lost count)
• Singapore
• Australia
• Germany (2 or 3 times)
• France (2)
• United Kingdom (2 or 3 times)
• Switzerland
• Italy
• Qingdao
• Japan

I may have missed some where but Chris Tour 09 was successful and along the way I created the art of Bannister spotting.

So 2010 is upon us, and the countries visited have already been UK, Germany, Italy and of course Switzerland, but now comes the Great Adventure PERU … but first we have to hit Amsterdam.

So stand by this is 2010, Chis Tour 09 is over and now we have Penfolds Adventures ….