Untamed Traveler

The day started off well as I affirmed for the 140^th time that a population of 1.3 billion people can’t construct a shower that will not flood the bathroom floor. Drying my skivvies may have been a bit easier if the hair dryer worked, but, oh well. I was just happy to leave this God forsaken city of Handan.

Handan is a shit hole of a city… the crotch of China… a smelly, stanky, stain on the map. I swear that if I am ever re-incarnated as a Chinese baby in Handan, I will shove my rattle down my baby throat at the earliest opportunity in hopes of drawing a better card next time.

Handan reminds me of an old black and white movie… no color, just shades of gray. Winter certainly doesn’t help colorize it and neither does the polluted sky. Flying out of Handan will be the happiest moment I’ve had in quite some time. (Have I mentioned that I don’t like Handan?)

I thought my luck would improve by flying south to Xiamen. I arrived at the airport early since I need extra time to explain that odd stuff in my suitcase… like deodorant and foot powder….  For some reason, the Chinese x-ray alarm goes bonkers when my luggage goes through… like the plutonium detector found something. Next thing I know, I’m in the back room with two 17-year-old uniformed inspection agents who motion for me to open my case. They then don rubber gloves and begin to sort through my stuff, always stopping at my deodorant… they buzz back and forth, back and forth… one of them stares at the label like they can read English, but of course, that’s insane…  I make the motion like I’m spraying deodorant on and they talk some more… then just close my case and I’m outta there… weird.

I boarded the China Southern jet and as I approached row 11, I could see a Chinese man sitting in my aisle seat. Now I covet my aisle seat and I’ll fight a good size Chinaman for it. As I approached, I checked my boarding pass, checked the diagram above the row and confirm… yep, he’s in my seat. Not only is he in my seat, he’s pretending he’s not, his head buried in a newspaper. Don’t think this round eye will go away!

Holding my boarding pass, I shook his newspaper, like 2 inches in front of his face and he still ignored me! I tapped him on the shoulder, crinkled the newspaper, pointed to my boarding pass seat assignment, pointed to my aisle seat, pointed to him and then pointed to the window seat! What friggin language don’t you understand! Everyone on earth understands seating assignments!

Well, he saw that I wasn’t going to give up in so he reluctantly moved to the window seat. This was gonna be a good day….

As I settled in for the flight to Xiamen, I looked directly to my left, across the aisle and noted an old woman fidgeting nervously. She had no clue how to fasten her seat belt. The young flight attendant showed her how and they had several exchanges in Chinese. The conversation ended as the flight attendant retrieved the air sick bag, aka barf bag from the seat pocket and placed in the old woman’s hands.

My immediate thought was… “oh no… she gonna be sick!”

I immediately tapped the guy I chased out of seat and made hand motions that I hoped meant “you can have my seat now if you want it.” He ignored me, perhaps still pissed that I’d won the seat battle. He probably thought I was taunting him, which I’m certainly capable of.

The door of the aircraft closed and we just sat there for what seemed like forever. I didn’t understand the announcements. The flight was full and the cabin temperature rose.

Meanwhile, I kept glancing at the old woman who was still fidgeting, still nervous, and increasing looked like she might be sick.

Finally, the jet started to taxi and the old woman screamed and tried to take off her seat belt! She was in a full panic attack and two flight attendants rushed down the aisle and tried to calm her down. One of them finally ended up yelling at her and they both ran back to their jump seats for takeoff.

Now I was seated, like 20 inches away from her, just across the aisle.  The jet engine whirred loudly, the brakes released and we began accelerating down the runway. The poor old woman’s face went from red… to pink… to snow white, to a pale gray.  She clutched the barf bag and started some type of chant or maybe Chinese prayer.

Five seconds later, she began moaning and then suddenly…. projectile vomit spewed! her Chinese breakfast flew all over the floor between us, on the seat back in front of me, the seat back in front of her… and yes, on my left shoe! She was like a Chinese Linda Blair, hurling chunky shit all over the place. AND, she still clutched the damned unopened barf bag!

Now I must hand it to the Chinese people as a group… not one other Chinese person on the plane barfed because she did. Normally, you would think that, you know… a stuffy hot plane… that long taxi runway…the smell of barf… I think a lot of Americans would barf too…. maybe even start a barfing epidemic.

By now the plane was in the air and there are chunks of half-digested dim sum everywhere!

I looked over at her and she now appeared fine!!!

The flight attendants completely ignored the barf and the flight went on as if it never happened… except that I’m now breathing through my ears! I swear I put my mind in a different place because I could have hurled so easily.

This went on for an hour and half! The plane decreased altitude and landed. OMG! I was so happy to finally get off the plane! But, as I reached the doorway, I heard the only another round eye on the plane, a confused Brit, say “This isn’t Xiamen.”

I immediately responded “Where the fuck is Xiamen?” I wouldn’t know, I’ve never been to Xiamen.

As I got to the door of the plane, I saw that this was a tiny, little airport between two big mountains. I descended the steps and followed the other passengers. I turned around and took this picture:

This was the service vehicle… a little bicycle pickup.

Seems we had a scheduled or perhaps unscheduled stop? I’m still not sure. There were no other aircraft and no one else at this tiny airport!

The passengers entered a waiting room inside the small terminal… and we waited. We waited for 30 minutes. I asked the Brit if he knew what was going on and he admitted to being as dumbfounded as I was.

I went to what they called a restroom, and I washed a half-digested clump of rice off my left shoe. My right shoe had a stain I didn’t recognize too…

I thought “At least they’ll clean up the barf on the damned plane!” I seriously didn’t think I could have gone another hour and a half, all the way to Xiamen.

A few minutes later, the crowd seemed to get up in unison and walked back to the jet. We re-boarded the aircraft and it was immediately obvious that they didn’t clean up the barf! It was still there… all over the aisle between 11C and 11D.  This time the frickin Chinese guy WANTED to sit by the window!

I went into immediate mouth breathing mode for the entire hour and a half flight! Every couple of minutes, I looked over at the old woman and could see that she wasn’t doing well.

The same lady barfed again when we finally touched down in Xiamen, though this time she did it in the barf bag.

Wonderful…. On the way out, I smiled at her and said “You know, you really should chew your food more.”

She had no idea what I said and I didn’t expect her too. She probably couldn’t wait to tell her grandchildren how she puked on an American…