The Journey

Flying economy class was never supposed to be fun, but when we're talking 11 hours long-haul, we're talking about opening up a whole new world of pain we never quite knew existed.

Things hadn't got off to a great start on the 30th of October, there had been a suicide on the railway system, and an overturned lorry on the M25, meaning that everything was running very late. In fact, the coach that arrived half an hour late for my 14:50 departure from Brighton was the 11:30 coach, having been delayed so many hours. Luckily I was able to board that one and proceeded to Heathrow. I was beginning to think maybe I'd have to take an Uber to Heathrow, but alas, we made it!

My bags were heavier than I had intended, and on very little sleep over the previous few days, I got in line at Heathrow, admittedly quite nervous as I hadn't flown in years, was questioned about why I had a pair of side cutters in my luggage and a folding knife, but was allowed to go on my was as obviously not a terrorist!

The main terror was that 11 hour flight. I think maybe I spent around half of it vaguely asleep, but due to the fact that I'm presently quite a weighty fellow, it was extremely uncomfortable. We were served some light meals. I didn't leave my seat for 10 hours, at which point I really needed the toilet (and a couple of quick blasts on the vape to boot)

So eventually, I wearily got off the A350 and found myself at Chinese immigration. The plan had originally been to see if I could get my flight changed, so I could use up the 10-day visa-free allowance so I could see Chengdu and Chongqing, and whilst I had been trying to practice my Mandarin before leaving, when it came to the crunch, and I actually had to use it, I was next to useless. Trying to express to the immigration police that "yes I'm currently transiting 1 day, but I want to change that..." wasn't easy. What didn't help at all is that I didn't have mobile data, all my batteries were practically dead and I was dog tired.

In the end, I capitulated and found myself in a transit hotel in Jian Yang in Chengdu, and directly opposite I found "Jumatang Hotpot Fish" and grabbed some spicy bone broth hotpot with rice noodles. Made the mistake of adding far too much Sichuan chilli which, ngl, was extremely powerful!! I do like spicy food but unfortunately I put so much in that by the time I started to get to the bottom of the soup, it was just too much. It did have the fortunate side-effect of helping me flush out all the shit food I had eaten before when I was back in the UK. As a result, my digestion seems to be a lot better now. Who knew food could be medicine? Well duh. Eat shit and die, I guess 😀

Had to be up at 06:30 to get the provided cab back to the airport, and on the plane by 09:50. If pain could have muscle memory, this is when I would experience it. As soon as I was seated on the plane, all the aches and pains from the 11 hour long-haul flight immediately came back to haunt me. Not a pleasant experience.

-TBC-