Cycling NZ26 - The Mile High Club

I clambered aboard today’s flight to Hong Kong, desperate to get out of the Mancurian candidates maze and try out my twiddly dentist style seat in the premium economy section of the plane. I’m slap bang in the middle of the aircraft over the wing spars so whichever way we fly into a mountain then I’m probably in the safest place. I won’t feel a thing even if Kathy accidentally backs us the wrong way up the driveway as we come in to land. 

Now there is or there should be a boarding protocol. With first and business class at the front and cattle class at the back and the loading chute near the front then one might expect that the cattle are driven on first and then me and my lot followed by the posh elite high flyers huh?  Nah. You know how hard it is to shuffle a deck of cards?  We’ll try doing that with seats, narrow gangways and cattle in the mix. There I am wrestling my helmet into the overhead compartment when the stampede hits!  MOOO!

Good news though is no take off delays today. We’re away on time. There’s a bloke at the side of me. Only looks to be 16 but tells me he is the headmaster at a Lancastrian private school on his way to Korea to drum up some business. Seems it’s easier to import folk to the UK than to get the locals to pay the extortionate term fees which now include an additional 20% vat charge. There is no money any more in the UK but I suspect you already knew that going by the cash strapped state of our roads and schools. 

As I write I’m somewhere over Tashkent heading into the Taklamakan desert north of the Himalayas. No emergency landings planned for today in Myanmar thank God as I would hate to be caught by the Rohingyas!  It’s 5pm UK time but probably nearer 10pm on the ground below. We are now pushing high and fast directly east aiming for dawn’s early light. 

Now I’ve always wanted to be in the mile high club. I’m in a section of the aircraft that is curtained off to keep us separated from the hoi polloi.  Mr Softee is demanding that we go to the club and spend tuppence or summat like that. I pull back the curtain and am immediately hit with the pungent smell of sweaty socks and cow poo farts!  Aw Gawd!  I hold my breath and with fingers in my ears to surpress the moos make a dash to the club entrance.  Not a fecking chance, Wayne.  It’s locked. You cannot get into this club  even with your favourite tit bit in tow. The toilets are tiny. Human shaped jelly moulds in fact.  I’d squeeze the crap out of anyone who would ever attempt to join me in one for a game of Bingo. Let me tell you, with one foot in the bowl and the other in the sink and with face pushed up against the window, well that is no position for a lady issit.  And unless you had one if those long sausage shaped balloon dogs, you know the ones with a nipple on the end that need a helluva blow to get them going, well it’d be like aiming for a cave at the end of a very very long valley.  It just ain’t gonna happen.  You’re gonna come up short!

A window in the bog you say?  Of course it has a window.  I don’t know about you but somehow I’m not expecting anyone to be on the outside looking in as I try to make peace with Mr Softee.  Not at this altitude anyway!

I look out the window. It’s a sparkly starry blackness that can only be found whilst this high and this remote.  Perhaps now about midnight locally. With nomads looking up at the wonderous stars contemplating the meaning of the universe only to see a small speck or red light flashing across the sky.   

I feel that queesy sensation in my tummy as the aircraft gains a bit of altitude, just as I say goodbye to Mr Softee with a whoosh!  How high?  Well, this is a first for me. Never in my born days have I ever flown above 40000 feet. We are at 41140 ft!  Almost 9 mile high clubs high!  Wow.  

How long is the knicker elastic on this aeroplane?  If it was daylight the sky would be a deep shade of midnight blue and I would see the curvature of the earth. I spot a high speed light cross the sky in front of us. I look up and see the international space station serenely glide by. I reach my open hand out into the icy jet stream in an attempt to stroke its underbelly only to accidentally touch the face of God. 

Talking about flying high. Many an afternoon is spent with my neighbour John. A man withered by the curse of dementia.  If the weather is good we often relax together in his warm conservatory with hot drinks in hand.  I point to the sky and show him on Flightradar24 the data for the high flying pressurised tins of human beans as they sow their patchwork seed across the bright wintery sky. Lucky buggers. That one is going to New York John, and that big fat one is an Airbus A380 on its way to San Francisco with about 600 people on board. Goshes and wows fill the air. We’re like two old diesel powered bi-planes on tick over watching the new kids on the block race across the iridescent winter sky whilst feeding our engines with a bit of coffee - and perhaps a bit of cake. 

This long haul stuff truly is long and hauly.  Yawn. 

I’m now in Hong Kong. On a seven hour long  boring night shift sat on my arse in the transfer lounge whilst I wait for my afternoon flight. I’m gonna see if I can shower and change into a clean t-shirt.  I’ve had my shoes off for all the flight which has left me with a pair of water melons to fit back in.  Ooohhh tight!  This is also a place where my alter ego from the 1970’s lives. I will probably spring out of the janitors closet with a KAPOW - just before I drop my bike again and karate chop myself in the pork balls.

On the next leg I will probably try to sleep and get ready for my first smell of sheep.  The next update will probably be after I arrive at my Auckland digs and after I’ve attempted to iron the creases out of my bike. 

Ciao for now