My trip to South Africa – Part 1

If you haven’t yet read my post about me making a trip to South Africa, I suggest you read it here, before proceeding any further.

On March 23, at 9.30 p.m. (IST) I was to take an Emirates flight to Dubai. The well heeled and well traveled advised me to reach the airport by 6.30 p.m.. I checked in to my cab at 4 p.m. and reached the airport at 5 p.m. itself.

The guard at the airport refused to allow me in.

“Sir, you are way too early. I presume it is your first international travel.”

“Well, in a way yes. The last time I traveled was in 1997. But why wouldn’t you allow me inside?” I accepted & inquired.

“Sir, many like you enter the airport early and leer at the airhostess. Standing outside the airport I don’t get to leer at them…if I don’t get to…why should I allow you?”

The guard had a point. I didn’t pursue and instead stood outside the airport with my laptop and baggage. I did cheat though – I stole at least three glances at the thin-legged air hostesses while they were entering the airport.

My colleagues, Gagan Bhatia, Vikas Sobti, Vijay Aggarwal and Surendra Sahu landed at 8 p.m. – a full three hours after I had reached. We then proceeded to the check in.

Being non-professional flirts, my colleagues asked for adjacent seats but I advised them to go for a seating arrangement like this:

Thankfully, my colleagues agreed to take the risk considering the huge benefits. The lady at the check in counter did give us a sheepish look while handing over our boarding passes, but we didn’t mind as long as we got to sit with pretty girls during the four hour long journey to Dubai.

While we were getting thro’ the security, we spent time listing out the questions one shouldn’t ask the pretty girls who might end up sitting next to us. Here is list of questions:

• Do they serve liquor as often as you ask?
• Do you think two people can fit into this airplane’s washroom?
• Can I remove the arm rest between our two seats?
• Would you want to get under a single seat belt?
• What trade are you planning to get into once in Dubai?

Pretty soon, we were in our seats waiting for the pretty girls to come and sit next to us…basically, occupy the ‘girl traps’ we had set for them.

As luck would have it, here is who came and sat next to us:

Me: A 60 year old grand mom, who was visiting Dubai to see her fourth grandson
Vikas Sobti: A 40 year old Army Officer
Surendra Sahu: A 35 year old lady who had applied to be a housemaid with a family in Dubai and had got selected
Gagan Bhatia: A 50 year old Iraqi businessman who bathed the person conversing with him with his spit
Vijay Aggarwal: Empty Seat

If we were to find solace in beautiful air hostesses serving us liquor & food, we were hugely disappointed.

Around 12 midnight on 23rd March, 2009 we landed in Dubai. Beautiful airport. If only it started looking more like an airport and less like a shopping mall, it would be even better.

Our flight to Cape Town was scheduled eight hours later. After spending time in the shopping area where for every Riyal Dirham spent on things for my wife, I ended up spending two Riyals Dirhams for my girlfriends…we retired to the one of the 25 restaurants & bars that one would find at Dubai International. Yes! There are 25 of them.

In just one hour, we moved from ‘we will remain awake & take in every inch of the Dubai airport’ to ‘give me a place on the wooden bench so I can sleep’.

Thankfully, we didn’t lay ‘Girl Traps’ for our nine hour journey from Dubai to Cape Town and enjoyed each other’s company (that’s when we weren’t glued to the in-flight entertainment system or flirting with the air hostesses with statements like: “Can I have one more beer pls?,” “I will need one more pillow pls.”).

We reached Cape Town in one piece and considering the amount of free liquor we had consumed…I was glad we didn’t have a hangover. A pretty Indian-like girl welcomed us at the airport and we were driven to Le Vendome, a five star hotel at Sea Point, Cape Town. Trust me, when it comes to five star hotels…India is the best.

My room number was 508. Don’t believe me? Just remove the mattress from the bed in Room number 508 of Le Vendome, and you will notice a huge ‘Jammy was here’ carved out from a knife. If they have changed the bed since I left, you can always try spotting ‘Jammy was here’ behind all the doors, on the window sills, and inside the bath tub.

Part Two of this series will be up by 8th or 9th of April

Other Funny Reads

# Making Love vs Having Sex
# My wife’s oral contraceptive is “No sex today!”
# Natural child birth is painful for the husband too
# A phone conversation with my girlfriend

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