Author: chrisingles

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 ….

So the flight was Melbourne was very uneventful, and the airport was totally deserted ! , I can see why it is a hub and the transit lounges were all full of weary travelers.

So after thirty mins we arrive at the Scarlet Hotel, a rather small hotel constructed above a parade of shops in the China town area of sing. Left is a of the hotel

The reception was a rather lush

The uneven corridor to the rooms

The room, small but very well appointed

The Cigar bar in the china town district

Well to be honest, apart form the good food, this is what I was waiting for, this is why I came to Australia …… a drive down one of the most scenic roads along the Ocean (much better than Route 1 in California) in a convertible ….. the scenery was stunning and my photos do not do it justice … well I was taking them at 80km/hr and even with the new Canon G10 they did not come out as I would have liked them.

The houses over looking the ocean were … well some of the best designs I have seen.. Just check out the one below is on its own in the air and that is just one of the rooms the rest of the house was also on stilts

Do they really need to be told this???

….. its sad as this is my last day in Oz, the trip was great, I have met some nice people … had a really good home cooked Sunday lunch… yes I lots a few teeth, but I

Today after a quick visit back to the kind Dr. O’Brian, who seemed to think I was exceptional as I was living in China and running an Olympic Venue, he said it was an honour to meet me and enjoyed our conversations !!!! very humbling, as I just see it as a job. Well I suppose it has not really sunk in, what I do, not even the TV interviews or being on the front page of the news papers. Its a job…. anyway Dr O’Brian after taking 300 Ozzie dollars from me, and telling me I have to visit another dentist with in the next six months, we pointed the car to the Great Ocean Road ….. but we took a wrong turning and where did we end up ………..

Today everything has caught up with me, the travelling , the teeth coming out and now I have a realy bad throat, my glands have come up and so I decided to spend the morning in bed, well actually most of the day. This evening we went to St Kilda, its a suburb of Melbourne (SE) on the sea front and went to Donovans (www.donovanshouse.com.au). The restaurant is set on the beach front, with a deck directly on the beach loooking North you can see the lights of downtown Melbourne. As we were on the coast, one had to start with a Vodka Bloody Mary ( oyster infused) from then on your truely had to have more oysters, and then a rather fine T Bone steak all washed down with a few bottles of the local white wine… and then I ended up on the beach…. The drive home was intresting, in that we took the roof down and then went in search of more food …. on well a very lazy day followed by a very nice meal

So after the drama, with the dentist and missing teeth, we decided to rent a car and head out of the city, to the Yarra Valley and the wine region…. stopping off at a nature reserve to see Koala’s and Roos. The scenery was stunning especially as it was Autumn, with fantastic colours (something I had not seen since Canada a few years ago). Anyway pictures speak louder than words …. so please take a gander …