Spain/China 2023, continuing (14)

[aadler]

Travel, arriving in China – July 11 Tuesday

As on the trip out, I don’t know when we crossed the dateline from Monday to Tuesday. I didn’t sleep during the initial outbound flight, but just watched movie after movie; Meet Cute, 65, Ticket to Paradise, Press Play.

We landed at the airport in Doha, Qatar at 6:00AM local time. Susan and I were shown out a separate exit for wheelchair service, then a shuttle bus to the terminal, then wheeled to our gate.

The airport was new, bright, bustling, modern. Service from the people who worked with us was polite and cheerful. Efficient? not remotely. Everything took a monstrous length of time, and even aside from time, the way they went about things multiplied the inconvenience. There were no jetways; passengers were taken to the plane one shuttle busload at a time, and it felt like there was at least ten minutes between buses, for our same flight. More: everywhere else we’d been, wheelchair passengers were put on first, to get us out of the way quickly; at Doha, we were taken on dead-ass last, so that we had to climb over other passengers and squeeze our luggage in on top of the crap that was already there. Our takeoff had been scheduled for 8:25AM; it was nearly 8:30 before we were even in our seats, and close to 9:00 before we made it into the air.

(Honestly, I haven’t seen this big a chain of fuck-ups since the last time I watched Afghans try to accomplish something.)

The flight itself was 8½ hours. I didn’t watch any movies this time, just tried to sleep. (Without much success; I may have managed three 30-minute dozes at various points in the flight.)

We landed at Hong Kong airport at 9:44PM China time, and it was at least 10:15 before we got into the terminal itself. Wheelchair service was more briskly supplied than at Doha; by the time we passed through the initial (airport) entry point and arrived at baggage claim, Kevin had already picked up our luggage and Susan’s wheelchair, to which she immediately transitioned.

Outside, Kevin and Mei‑li had arranged a van to transport us. (Rena and a few others from our group were outside, and she even helped the driver figure out where to place Susan’s folded wheelchair, but then we were all on our way.) Customs was a two-part process; first we had to officially leave Hong Kong, then a hundred feet further on we submitted the same documentation to be inspected for our admission to greater China. It was midnight before we finished crossing from Hong Kong into Shenzhen. Kevin had the driver take us to the apartment building where he’d arranged a unit for us (but we’ll be paying).

It was past 1:00AM (technically the morning of the 13th) before I made it to bed. We’d been up nearly 36 hours.