The Travel Diva

One of the other travelers in my family

My husband replaced his Reeboks, which melted on his last trip to India, with a pair of Nike’s, but being considerate of his fellow travellers decided not to wear them on his recent flight to Mumbai because, as he eloquently stated, “…they smell like an Indian lavatory in the mango season.”

His decision did have a certain element of danger to it though – one of grip. You see, Jonathan likes to leave things to the last possible nanosecond; last passenger calls are usually attached to his name. Grip, he explained to the attendant at the boarding gate, was the cause of his delay. To quote from his email: “Most of the world’s major airports have highly polished floors so rubber soles are a must for sprinting across the terminal to make last minute connections. This is where I came unstuck - my leather soled boots fail the grip anything. Any effort put into forward motion is rewarded with the biped’s equivalent of wheel spin.”

I warned him about packing his camera bag in with his checked-in luggage, but does he listen? You see India’s customs scan luggage as you leave the airport and his bulging suitcase attracted some attention. The security guard pointed to the monitor which outlined his camera bag containing several lenses that did in some small way bear a resemblance to a series of small hand grenades all neatly lined up. To quote again from his email: “I mimed someone taking pictures with a camera - he seemed pleased. Emboldened by his initial reaction, I went on to mime someone zooming a long lens in and out. In hindsight, this was a foolish thing to do given the similarity of this action to the much used hand gesture employed by Europeans to signify that someone is a wanker.” Quite how he managed to get through airport security without experiencing some quality time with a rubber glove I don’t know!

Jonathan’s biggest concern, he later told, was that security staff would actually open his case and see the firewall he had not declared. I wonder how he would have mimed that one.

posted by Cindy-Lou Dale @ Friday, August 03, 2007