26 November, 2009

4Rm GIRNE TO 9gErIa

Departure (July 11, 2009. 1615hrs)
As Peace my travelling partner and I boarded the shuttle bus waving to our friends who were waving us goodbye, the reality that I was finally going to Nigeria after a long time dawned.
Thoughts of similar departure scenes for the victims of the two air-crashes: Air France and Yemeni Airlines came to my mind. Some of them would have waved goodbye to their loved ones and some more of them would have called ahead to their loved ones to await their arrival at their point of disembarkment.
All the way to Ercan Airport and after boarding the plane, I was still empathizing with those who had lost their loved ones in those ill-fated flights.
As the plane taxied and took off into the skies, it was time for confessions of sins. What could have gone wrong with those flights? What could have caused the malfunction of those planes? It beats me.
As the place touched down at the Istanbul Ataturk Airport in Istanbul, Turkey, people started clapping, joyful and thankful for a safe flight.

TRANSIT 1: ISTANBUL ATATURK AIRPORT, ISTANBUL.
Our connecting flight to Amsterdam was not going to take off until 5:55am the next morning. We got on the queue to clear Immigration. The Immigration Officer on duty brought out his magnifying glass and checked our Nigerian passports thoroughly. That was something he did not do for the others who preceded us. He checked the bio-data and visa pages one ‘mm’ at a time for any sign that we had tampered with the passport somewhat. After a while, he let us go.
How do we pass the time and not get bored before our early morning flight out of Istanbul? Peace and I decided to take a walk round the airport and we ended up boarding the bus to Taxim at the heart of Istanbul. The crowd at Istanbul is same to what you will see at Idumota in Lagos some years ago. Not even in Central London would you find such a thronging crowd.
We had a cub of roasted corn each before we went looking into the shops and came out with some nice stuff. We got tired and went back to Taxim Square where we sat down on the steps and were talking about stuffs. After a while we headed to the café so that I could make a call to someone.
We boarded the Airport Shuttle around 12:30am back to the Airport. The parts of Istanbul we went through were beautiful. Old buildings interspersed with modernity dotted the whole area. I would love to go back soon.
At about 1:30am, we got back to the Ataturk Airport, got confused at the local terminal and finally found our way to the International Terminal and the storage facility where we stowed our luggage before we ventured into town.

TRANSIT II: Schipol Airport, Amsterdam (July 12, 2009 0820hrs)
At about 2:30am, we checked in our luggage, Peace, Abutu and I at the KLM Counter A22. From the storage facility, I got a porter who carted my luggage for me. He wanted me to give him Abutu in exchange. He was a crooked dirty old man who should go home and die in peace. What a fool! Do I look like Abutu’s father?
My passport was checked, scrutinized, re-checked and rechecked over and over again. Finally, I was allowed into the boarding area and allowed to join my two friends who had less trouble clearing Immigration this time around. We went into the Duty Free Area and we almost missed our flight. Not until we heard our names over the loudspeakers before we started rushing to our boarding gate to board.
The flight from Istanbul became interesting towards the end because it started raining and it had been a long time since I saw rain fall.

LAGOS:ARRIVAL
The first thing I saw on arrival was the remains of a Nigeria Airways Plane. The plane we flew in from Amsterdam to Lagos was much more bigger with three aisles and good entertainment facilities. They were really giving us value for our money. Also, unlike minimal services for people in Economic class, the KLM crew went all out to make sure that everybody had enough to eat and drink and were comfortable.
At the check-out counter, we were made to wait endlessly while the immigration officials held sway. We waited and waited until they finally checked us all out.
My Uncle and Aunt drove us to a restaurant where we had a proper Naija welcome with Jollof Rice and fried Snails.
Need I say that there was no public power supply by the time we got home? They had been counting three weeks of no supply and were on generators. I would have to wait five more days to catch a 20secs glimpse of power supply.