Coming Home?

Like most things to do with travel insurance, extracting us from Hong Kong takes longer than you could possibly think.

On Thursday, we’re going to fly on Friday. On Friday, we’re going to fly on Saturday.

Then, we’re not, because the airline office requires fit to fly certification and their medical division, which need to look at it, aren’t open at weekends.

We might fly out on Monday, quite possibly Monday evening.

And, no, we won’t be flying business class, but premium economy, with an extra seat.

This delay is unusually irritating as we’re scheduled to be back in the UK for only my second visit “home” in over three years, and Zac’s third, and I’d like to be getting organised.

Last time round – which was winter – I spent most of my time prostrate with a truly global selection of colds and whining about it, and this time I have a list as long as my arm of people I’d like to see, and things I’d like to do.

As it is, I can’t really arrange anything, since I’m not even sure when we get into the country, and, if travel insurance is as travel insurance does, we might even miss the long-planned family reunion that we’re coming “home” for in the first place. Gah.

“Hi! The insurance now THINK we’re flying on Monday, which would mean arriving Tuesday. Can we crash at yours on Tuesday, if they get their shit together?” Yes, replies Caro, Zac’s best friend’s ma, who has the patience and many other qualities of a saint.

According to our original plan, we’d be flying out of Beijing via Kazakhstan in time to hit Zac’s best mate’s house in Stokey for a sleepover on Tuesday.

I send feeble emails, along the lines of this. “Hi! The insurance now THINK we’re flying on Monday, which would mean arriving Tuesday. Can we crash at yours on Tuesday, if they get their shit together?”

Yes, replies Caro, Zac’s best friend’s ma, who has the patience and many other qualities of a saint.

“Sorry, the insurance STILL hasn’t confirmed. Can we keep a space on your floor for Tuesday night?”

I email my ma, who’s about to have routine surgery. “Assuming all goes to plan, we’re flying on Monday, so we’ll catch the train from London on Wednesday morning and see you in the hospital in the afternoon…”

Etcetera. It’s discombobulating for me, and, I’d imagine, a royal pain in the arse for everyone whose hospitality we’ll be abusing, if we make it.

I’m quite used to transitioning effortlessly between countries – we can hop, quite literally, from a reindeer herder’s teepee to an upscale emergency clinic in Hong Kong with nary a hint of conceptual whiplash – but usually these transitions are within my control.

This one isn’t.

“No, no, really,” I say. I don’t want a car because, until I hear back from C, I’m not at all sure whether we’ll be headed to Kings Cross to get the train to my parents house, or London Bridge to catch the bus to Stokey.

We pass the time with gigantic seafood buffets, enormous breakfasts, sashimi benders, and, for me, a little light typing, and for Zac, a little Chinese and a lot of gaming. Monday rolls around.

And, eight hours before we need to leave for the airport, Purple Tse, our travel insurance fixer, and a man of few words, texts to advise we’ll be leaving.

I guess, as travel insurance cases go, we may be expensive, but we’re at least relatively low maintenance. He’s sending a car to us at 8.45pm.

We’re flying Emirates, through Dubai. We’ll be in Blighty around noon tomorrow.

I ring OneAssist to confirm what’s happening the other end. No, we don’t need a car. I’m pretty confident I can get us on the train.

“Are you sure?” asks Sally. “I’d hate for anything to go wrong.”

“No, no, really,” I say. I don’t want a car because, until I hear back from Caro, I’m not at all sure whether we’ll be headed to Kings Cross to get the train to my parents’ house, or London Bridge to catch the bus to Stokey. “I think we’ll be fine on the train. It gets us right into London Bridge.”

“It’s just…” I say. “It’s just we’re being evac-ed from Hong Kong to London as a medical emergency. Would you mind looking a little more, well, ill?….”

Because we’ve acquired some new stuff – largely X-rays and MRI scans and medical records, but still, ya know, stuff – and because we’ve been in Hong Kong long enough to spill a small tornado of our limited possessions around the room, packing takes a little longer than usual, quite possibly a whole 15 minutes.

(One of many things I like about living with very few material possessions is that even if you scatter-gun everything you own around your apartment or hotel room in the manner of an especially thorough Drugs Squad raid, you can’t actually make that much mess.)

Zac, effortlessly and reflexively, swings his pack onto his back. (It’s still the same one his dad brought out to Vietnam, three years ago.)

“Can you take that off?!” I ask.

“Why?” he says. “It’s fine!”

“It’s just…” I say. “It’s just we’re being evac-ed from Hong Kong to London as a medical emergency. Would you mind looking a little more, well, ill?….”

With his T-shirt covering the small strip of plaster that is all that remains of an epic medical evac and a hefty six figure sum of our insurance underwriters’ money he looks… Well, like any robust, healthy, if slightly scrawny, hippie kid.

The car arrives. I sign away yet more of our insurers’ money on our hotel bill, and load our gear into the car: my knackered backpack, Zac’s little pack, and the computer bag we use as carry-on when we’re in climates cool enough to require an extra bag.

“You have three seats booked,” says the chap, looking rather mystified, as Zac takes our wheelie trolley for a spin around the airport, which is bustling, but not busy. “Yes,” I say, cringing inwardly. “We’re on a medical evacuation to London.”

Hong Kong International appears, a blaze of light in this city of lights, and we enter its warm embrace. We’re flying Emirates, and we’re both rather excited at the prospect of what will be only my second A380 – a double-decker plane, y’all!

Over to the check-in desk. “You have three seats booked,” says the chap, looking rather mystified, as Zac takes our wheelie trolley for a spin around the airport, which is bustling, but not busy.

“Yes,” I say, cringing inwardly. “We’re on a medical evacuation to London as my son has a broken arm.” I indicate my spawn.

The guy’s eyebrows shoot upwards. Zac is currently using both arms to push himself up on the steering bar of the trolley so that he can whizz along with no feet on the ground.

“Really?” he says. “He looks… Well, he looks quite recovered. In fact, if you hadn’t told me, I wouldn’t have known there was anything wrong with him. Do you have the certification?”

I pull out Zac’s fit to fly letter, which I’ve stashed with his “may set off alarms because he has a steel plate in his arm” card in my camera bag.

And we’re checked in. I am not a little gutted to find that Hung’s Delicacies, which is reputed to be one of the best airport restaurants in the world, is shut.

Both of us are, further, gutted to find that my cyborg child doesn’t even set off an alarm at security. Boo!

I have a Skype appointment at 9am Hong Kong time, which is 5am Dubai time, and, believing the airport’s propaganda about fast wifi, I’m thinking I can keep this Skype date.

Onto the plane we go. Since our insurance has nixed the promise of business class, we’ll be riding in premium economy, on the ground floor, with the plebs, although the seats remain remarkably spiffy and leather.

Zac’s stoked by the inflight entertainment. “You know,” he says. “Emirates is one of my favourite airlines. I just like the range of games they have.”

Me? I’m looking forward to a choice of meals and, of course, free inflight booze. I’m not, generally, a fan of flying – I’d much rather travel overland – but if you are going to fly, and especially if you’re not paying, a decent airline makes all the difference.

And, yes, I know you’re not supposed to welly gin and tonics pre-dinner plus wine with dinner because it dehydrates you and all, but I want to get some sleep on this leg as, due to the magic of time changes, I have a Skype appointment at 9am Hong Kong time, which is 5am Dubai time, and, believing the airport’s propaganda about fast wifi, I’m thinking I can keep this Skype date.

A few games of competitive Tetris with my spawn, a token attempt at the improving literature I bought in Mongolia – The Penguin History of the World, which I’m working through at approximately the speed I worked through Proust, which is to say my incursions are better measured in millimetres than pages – and I’m napping. Yay!

We find our way to the monorail, which takes us through more ugly neo-fascist granite fountains lit like something out of Triumph of the Will to a Starbucks, where Zac collapses across two chairs to sleep.

Dubai airport is sterile, fake and glitzy, like a slice of Vegas with all the fun sucked out of it, a welter of cold fountains, tourists with the kind of tan that speaks of a fortnight spent doing nothing but avoiding white patches, and, at this time of day, South Asians doing all the horrible jobs that happen in airports at night, because heaven forfend a Dubai national should lower themselves to that.

My T-shirt dress that I’ve been wearing quite happily in Hong Kong suddenly feels short. Not that I’m the least modestly clad woman there. Hell’s, no.

There are bootie shorts aplenty on the ladies who have enjoyed their Dubai holidays without, apparently, even registering that this is one of the more conservative Islamic societies out there.

We find our way to the monorail, which takes us through more ugly neo-fascist granite fountains lit like something out of Triumph of the Will to a Starbucks, where Zac collapses across two chairs to sleep.

I pass an enraging hour or so trying to use the internet to Skype, wishing I’d established whether Skype worked before caffeinating myself with a large latte, and a further enraging hour or so trying to do some “work”, despite the fact that my brain no longer functions and all I’m basically doing is stabbing at the reload button on Gmail seeing if there’s anything I can delete, with the odd bit of Facebook bitching by way of variety, and then we’re off again.

Next stop…. London! It will be noon when we arrive, or 8pm Hong Kong time, and a quite insanely-hot-for-London 27°C (80°F).

We’re coming, I guess, “home”?! And THIS time I’m going to enjoy it.

Image credit: Airbus A380 MSN1, flying at the Singapore Airshow, Feb 2008 by Stephen_AU.