Honeymoon Hell

This story begins well and then turns into a travel nightmare.

We had a fabulous wedding ceremony in Durham Castle attended by family and friends from all over the world, a truly memorable experience. The next day we set off for our honeymoon in Sri Lanka for another memorable experience – but not the same kind.

We flew out business class for a fortnight in a five star resort. Everything was perfect until the last day. That was the day that the Icelandic volcano blew up (Eyjafjallajokull – I defy you to pronounce it!) and our airline informed us that we could not fly home and just to stay put until things sorted themselves out.

On the face of it that seemed a bonus. Who wouldn’t want another few days in paradise? The problem was that we had to get back to work and the uncertainty about when that might be was a little concerning.

Of much more concern was the attitude of the resort management. As soon as they realised that we were going to overstay they asked for us to pay for the extra days. And this was not cheap. As it was our honeymoon we had pushed the boat out and gone for extreme luxury but the downside now was that the daily rate was several hundred pounds and we were ill equipped to pay that much. As we weren’t sure when we would get a flight out we offered to pay one night at a time but what this meant was that each morning at breakfast the manager approached us in a very aggressive manner and demanded, in front of other guests, that we pay for the next night or he would have us thrown out of the hotel.

Trying to get through to our airline was impossible. Our emails went unanswered and despite trying every telephone number they had in the world we got no answer. Sometimes we would hang on for an hour and then we were cut off. The only communication we had with them were standardised texts and emails saying that they were doing their best and would get in touch with us when they could offer us a flight home. In the meantime we had to be ready to go at two hours notice.

After three days of uncertainty the airline told us that as we were ‘valued customers’, by which they meant we had paid to travel business class, they could fly us to Mumbai where they could accommodate us as a goodwill gesture, in a three star hotel until we could be re-routed back to the UK.

A three star hotel in Mumbai didn’t sound great but compared to the expense and unpleasantness of staying in the resort hotel in Sri Lanka it seemed a better alternative.

In retrospect it was simply moving from the frying pan into the fire. A three star hotel in Mumbai was not what one would expect of a three star hotel in Europe or North America. It would be more accurately described as a minus three star hotel. It was situated in an area of Mumbai that would have made the setting of Slumdog Millionaire look good. It had no air conditioning and the fan didn’t work. The bed linen was a dirty grey and covered in stains of dubious origin. And there were cockroaches, lots of them and they had no shame – they inhabited the room quite openly day and night as though they were the legitimate guests. I say night, but we didn’t stay even one night. After the third or fourth cockroach has crawled over me during the night I had had enough and we checked out.

Navigating the traffic in a taxi to another hotel in Mumbai at two in the morning was a hair raising experience, reminiscent of a fair ground bumper car ride but without the bumpers or any rules of the road. I was reminded of a quote from a book on India by William Dalrymple about a taxi driver who said, “In my life six times have I crashed, and on not one occasion have I ever been killed”.

Our new hotel was reasonably comfortable but the telephone reception and internet connection were unreliable necessitating frequent visits to an internet cafe and every time we ventured outside we were beset by hordes of beggars – blind, lame, disabled and disfigured. The most distressing were the mothers with babies in their arms holding out their hands for money. Almost as bad were the snake charmers who thrust their snakes into your face in an intimidating manner.

It was another three days before we were contacted by the airline who said they could take us as far as Istanbul in Turkey but we would have to wait there for another connection. Alternatively we could wait in Mumbai. We accepted, mainly because from there we believed there were alternative means of transport home if the ash cloud persisted but it also looked as though the skies were clearing anyway and we might have a better chance to fly home from there.

Our optimism at coming to Istanbul was misplaced. The skies might have opened but the backlog of flights and passengers meant we couldn’t get a flight in the foreseeable future. We thought about car hire but couldn’t get a vehicle on a one way rental and we discounted travelling by bus. In our student days we had travelled by long distance bus in Europe and even in our current circumstances it was an experience we didn’t want to repeat.

So we resorted to the train. We rationalised that it would only be three days and then at least the uncertainty would be over. Booking over the internet proved impossible so we went to the main railway station to buy tickets – as it seemed did half of Europe. The place was teeming and there was no discernible ‘system’ for buying tickets. We couldn’t work out which ticket counter to go to to buy international tickets and there was certainly no orderly system for queuing up – it was every man for himself and those with the sharpest elbows prevailed. We soon learnt that it was perfectly acceptable behaviour simply to walk up to the nearest window and push in at the front. The strategy then was to hold off those who came behind and tried to do the same to you.

I heard one larger than life Texan wearing a 10 gallon hat wailing plaintively that he would be prepared to eat his hat if only someone could help him buy a ticket to Paris. He was still there two hours later after we managed to purchase two second class tickets all the way to London via Sofia, Belgrade, Munich and Paris – a grand tour no less.

But as we had come to expect this was no grand tour, it was another journey from hell. Second class meant sitting upright for two days all the way to Munich in a compartment designed for eight but for which 12 seats had been sold. It was only marginally better than standing in the corridor which was jam packed with people and their luggage making it almost impossible to go to the toilet at the end of the carriage. Not that one would want to use the toilet after the first couple of hours – by which time is was over flowing with urine and faeces and the stench was overwhelming. It almost made us nostalgic for the hotel in Mumbai.

The man sitting next to me was, to put it politely, overweight. Those less charitable would have called him morbidly obese. His only redeeming feature was that he was immensely cheerful and despite the fact that we had no language in common he very generously offered to share his food with us of which he had brought a huge bag full. We on our part had brought nothing because we believed there was a buffet car on the train but when we asked the conductor about it he just shrugged his shoulders and indicated that we were mistaken – not that we could have reached it along the crowded corridors. As a consequence we were immensely grateful for the offer of food from our travelling companion.

Our gratitude to our fat friend was short lived. Apart from devouring a mountain of food from his bag he then began to belch and fart with gay abandon obviously believing that it was acceptable conduct. And if this was not bad enough it got worse when he went to sleep. At first he just snored but then he slipped sideways and leant his head on my shoulder and repulsed me with his stinking breath. The elbows that I had sharpened at Istanbul station now came in handy. Every time he leaned on me I jabbed him in the ribs and he responded, still asleep, by turning his body so that his head was now leaning on the shoulder of his unfortunate travelling companion on his other side. This guy soon learned that the movement could be reversed by a similar jab in the ribs so throughout the night our fat friend in the middle was first turned one way and then the other depending upon the severity of the jab he received.

It was not long before I came to loathe both of them with a hatred that was visceral. In between dreaming about long hot showers and soft white cotton sheets I fantasised about what I would do to them if given the opportunity.

We arrived in Belgrade at what seemed the middle of the night and were told that we would stop there for about an hour while various carriages from all over Europe would be coupled and uncoupled. This gave us the chance to get out to stretch our legs and buy some food for ourselves at one of the numerous kiosks on the platform.

It was at that point that we suffered yet another heart churning moment, one of many on this journey from hell. As we were paying for our food, well over the odds because we didn’t have the right currency, the train began to pull out of the station. Leaving our change behind we ran despairingly down the platform shouting as loudly as we could for it to stop – all to no avail. We stopped at the end of the platform, out of breath and at the end of our tether – only to see our fat friend on the platform, stuffing his mouth with food, and laughing uproariously at our plight. In between mouthfuls he indicated that we should look back at where the train had disappeared into the night – and there it was, re-tracing its steps to end up at a different platform. We could have wept with relief.

Back on board the train my husband discovered that he could get an internet connection on his phone and in his email inbox he found a message from our airline. It said that we had been booked on a flight the previous day from Istanbul to London. The message must have arrived within a few minutes of pulling out of Istanbul station. We realised, to our immense dismay, that instead of looking at another two days on the train we could probably have been at home in bed. At this point I did weep – only for our fat friend to offer me the most disgusting handkerchief for me to wipe my eyes with.

About 48 hours after we set off from Istanbul we pulled into Munich, stinking almost as much as our fat friend who waved us off as if we were bosom buddies. Our onward connection to London was not for a couple of hours so we took the opportunity of checking in to a local hotel that offered hourly rates so that we could wash and change. By this time we were beyond caring what kind of establishment it was. The receptionist looked at us quizzically but offered us the ‘honeymoon suite’, not realising the irony of the situation. Apart from a used condom in the bathroom and the erotic pictures on the wall the room was relatively acceptable and by the time we were cleaned up we felt quite refreshed.

There was just enough time before departure for a decent meal. The environs of the station offered a variety of international cuisine and we plumped for Italian on the basis that it was cheap and cheerful and a known quantity. For obvious reasons we avoided the Indian and Turkish restaurants.

After our privations on the train the meal was lovely – bruschetta for starters, followed by pasta and salad and pannacotta for dessert, accompanied by a cheeky red wine. As we indicated we wanted the bill we were feeling almost human again. But not for long. As my husband reached into his pocket for his wallet he looked distraught – it was not there. And it wasn’t in any of his pockets. It contained not only all our cash and credit cards but also our train tickets.

As the waiter stood over us waiting to be paid we tried to explain that we had lost our money. He called the manager, who was distinctly unsympathetic. Despite all our protestations of innocence he lost patience with us and threatened to impound our luggage as security for payment. Then to our total dismay he called the police. They too were unsympathetic and ordered us to accompany them to the police station.

As the prospect of a night in the cells loomed before us we managed to convince them that we could probably pay the bill if we could phone my family back in the UK and they could transfer money to us. Reluctantly they agreed.

Once I managed to get through to him on the phone my brother was willing to send us the money but suffice to say, actually transferring it internationally was a digital nightmare which took until the early hours of the morning.

As the banks didn’t open for several more hours we reluctantly made our way back to the hotel where we had hired a room the previous evening.  The staff at the reception desk smiled knowingly as we paid for a few more hours.

At the bank matters proceeded with Teutonic efficiency.  On production of my husband’s passport they handed over enough currency for us to pay the restaurant, to purchase train tickets for the rest of our journey and enough for incidental expenses and food.

Finally we thought we were on the last leg of our journey but it was not to be.  At Munich station we discovered, as in Istanbul, that international trains were heavily oversubscribed and no tickets were available until the next day.  Flights from the Airport were in a similar position.  So it was back to see our friends at the rent-by-hour hotel! They greeted us like long lost friends.  They even offered us the daily rate instead of an hourly rate!

The next morning we boarded our train and miraculously it seemed we were home in less than 24 hours.

As the taxi pulled into our drive my husband received an email on his phone from his boss.  It demanded to know when he would be back at work.  His boss couldn’t understand why it had taken us so long to come back from Sri Lanka when it had only taken him 48 hours to come back from Poland!  Discretion being the better part of valour my husband declined to respond.