Airplane

'Sleeping Positions, Volume Control and Time Zones'

Arrived safely at about 2:30am English time 7:00am Sri Lankan time into Columbo Airport. Currently sat watching that famous national Sri Lankan past time, baseball, on one of the country’s most popular stations, ESPN..... Isn’t globalisation a wonderful thing.

I think the flight from Heathrow took off late, but it seemed to arrive into the airport in Columbo at the correct time. Something to do with passengers in transit being late on board.

I was seated by the window towards the back of the plane, and despite the plane being apparently full, there was a spare seat next to me, and a row in the middle line adjacent to me that had just one person sitting in it.

Not too many complaints about the flight itself, I was fed twice and also managed to get up a cup of tea and several glasses of apple juice. Almost ended up with a glass of tomato juice as clearly my Yorkshire accent caused some problems!

There was a good choice of films and programs on the plane, slightly confusing to work out first as it took a few minutes to work out what the schedule was from the in-flight magazine. Due to catching some shut eye I missed the first ten minutes of the film I wanted to see which was Rise of the Titans, but later on I also managed to catch Mirror, Mirror and a Thousand Words (although I didn’t quite catch the end).

In between times I did my best to get some sleep, which as usual on board, wasn’t easy. I probably slept for about five hours or so, but not straight through. Even with a spare seat next to me, it was a tough ask to find a position that was comfortable. I was blessed with two pillows and two blankets but I still managed to wake up each time with a slightly sore neck.

It’s funny looking around and seeing what positions other people are opting in order to get some sleep. I don’t think there’s a stead fast way to be able to do it, and on a ten hour flight like the one I was on, sleeping for half of the duration is a decent effort. It doesn’t however mean that the first thing I do when I eventually get to where I’m staying isn’t sleep!!!

It’s a pretty good job that the three seats next to me were unoccupied as I’m sure the one person occupying it was as much of a handful as a full row for people around him. Clearly he was oblivious to the rules about turning your phone off on the plane, and he was even more confused to discover that in mid-air wasn’t the best place to try and check your facebook account.

He also clearly had some hearing issues as at one point one of the stewardesses had to come along as ask him to put some headphones on as he was watching a film at full blast so that everyone around him could hear. Not the best idea when everyone is trying to sleep. 

Felt like stealing his iPad when he fell asleep with it on his knee before we landed.

It seems Sri Lankans are just as impatient as other races of people when it comes to getting off planes as they were all up and getting their bags out of the overhead lockers before the plane had all it’s wheels touched down. After waiting for all the people to get past me some lady remarked, “Don’t you want to get off?!” I believe my response was something along the lines of, “I’m going to wait until the doors are at least open so the queue starts moving!”

Thankfully the connecting flight from Singapore appears to be taking off relatively close to where I departed the plane from Heathrow so I still have some time to wait before the plane starts to board.

I’m still slightly confused about Colombo’s apparent time zone, since when can you be +5.30 ahead of GMT. I guess there must be a huge section of ocean somewhere and a significant lack of land that felt it necessary to have a semi time zone. I can’t even change my watch because without checking I don’t have any idea what time it is! Good job I won’t be spending very long here.

Saying that, I would like to come to Sri Lanka for a holiday. I know its meant to have some excellent beaches and some wonderful scenery that I would like to see! It’s also not far away from the Maldive islands which is a good excuse to visit and dip over to the islands of true paradise next door.

Anyway, time to give the blogging a rest, whilst landing I felt like my head was going to explode due to the changing pressure, and I wouldn’t expect this would be helping my symptoms!

Rex Kramer: Striker, listen, and you listen close: flying a plane is no different than riding a bicycle, just a lot harder to put baseball cards in the spokes.