From the moment I got on the plane at Heathrow I already saw how this is
going to be an experience, very different from what I previously knew.
Outside of Europe previously I have been to Thailand, Egypt and USA (in
fact only Boston). I hadn't had even airline transfers at other
locations.
Now the plane to my transfer - Doha - was full of little kids of families from the Subcontinent. Sitting on the third row, I was surrounded with crying kids and young inexperienced parents. Out of the dozen kids around me, there were three who at an age of 4-5 were acting as selfless older sisters, doing their best to help their parents appease those toddlers that were tearing themselves apart with crying for no perceivable reason. Unfortunately one girl was left without an older sister, or an available flight attendant, so that first flight was loud and lively. This left me with some nice sense of being in a kindergarten.
The airport in Doha was pretty much as I imagined all rich oil exporting khalifate countries to be. My first impression of everything I saw: cleaning service, duty free shops had a sense of luxury. Not long after that I got to see the people behind it all - foreigners that got to care to ensure the luxury, but never had a chance to experience it themselves.
While approaching the gate for my flight I sensed the smell of the Chinese tiger fat or some of its related remedies. There was a long queue at the gate, so I decided to enjoy the rare occasion of having a pre-booked seat by waiting seated, rather than queueing. There weren't many white people on the queue, so it was easy for me to notice that they didn't really move forward much. Slowly I started noticing a lady from the airline staff that was helplessly trying to put order in the beginning of the queue. I kept wondering why despite her efforts it seems that she wasn't too successful. When the crowd started dissolving I got a chance to observe a case of queue-jumping in action. A man, dressed in a suit and his family tried to enter in front of the queue. Another family, not Bangladeshi by appearance, objected. a longer argument developed and made me think that the man in suit wasn't used to not being allowed to queue-jump. Still, some serious looks from the surrounding people made it apparent that this time queue-jumping would not be possible. The defeated family set off to the end of the queue, just to get someone else around 10 people behind to offer them to queue in front of him. This time no one objected. The experience at Bangladeshi immigration was pretty much the same.
On the second plane there was something else that seemed strange to me. Instead of getting straight to their seats, people were wandering around. While I was putting my luggage above my head I saw someone looking at his boarding pass. He looked for so long that I could see that he was on the same row as me. After a while he continued wrongly searching further in the plane. Someone else around had sat himself on the right row, but wrong seat. All that made me realize that these people were unable to read. The first one couldn't recognize westernised numerals, the second one - Latin letters. At the end a woman found that her seat is next to mine. Whenever she left during the 4-hour flight, she couldn't find her seat until she spotted me.
As for me, I also played my role in this little international chaos. I really wanted to have a beer, but didn't dare to ask for alcohol in an Islamic airline. It was just in the second flight that I overheard someone else order wine, so that I dared to ask for a beer. They gave me a Heineken.
Now the plane to my transfer - Doha - was full of little kids of families from the Subcontinent. Sitting on the third row, I was surrounded with crying kids and young inexperienced parents. Out of the dozen kids around me, there were three who at an age of 4-5 were acting as selfless older sisters, doing their best to help their parents appease those toddlers that were tearing themselves apart with crying for no perceivable reason. Unfortunately one girl was left without an older sister, or an available flight attendant, so that first flight was loud and lively. This left me with some nice sense of being in a kindergarten.
The airport in Doha was pretty much as I imagined all rich oil exporting khalifate countries to be. My first impression of everything I saw: cleaning service, duty free shops had a sense of luxury. Not long after that I got to see the people behind it all - foreigners that got to care to ensure the luxury, but never had a chance to experience it themselves.
While approaching the gate for my flight I sensed the smell of the Chinese tiger fat or some of its related remedies. There was a long queue at the gate, so I decided to enjoy the rare occasion of having a pre-booked seat by waiting seated, rather than queueing. There weren't many white people on the queue, so it was easy for me to notice that they didn't really move forward much. Slowly I started noticing a lady from the airline staff that was helplessly trying to put order in the beginning of the queue. I kept wondering why despite her efforts it seems that she wasn't too successful. When the crowd started dissolving I got a chance to observe a case of queue-jumping in action. A man, dressed in a suit and his family tried to enter in front of the queue. Another family, not Bangladeshi by appearance, objected. a longer argument developed and made me think that the man in suit wasn't used to not being allowed to queue-jump. Still, some serious looks from the surrounding people made it apparent that this time queue-jumping would not be possible. The defeated family set off to the end of the queue, just to get someone else around 10 people behind to offer them to queue in front of him. This time no one objected. The experience at Bangladeshi immigration was pretty much the same.
On the second plane there was something else that seemed strange to me. Instead of getting straight to their seats, people were wandering around. While I was putting my luggage above my head I saw someone looking at his boarding pass. He looked for so long that I could see that he was on the same row as me. After a while he continued wrongly searching further in the plane. Someone else around had sat himself on the right row, but wrong seat. All that made me realize that these people were unable to read. The first one couldn't recognize westernised numerals, the second one - Latin letters. At the end a woman found that her seat is next to mine. Whenever she left during the 4-hour flight, she couldn't find her seat until she spotted me.
As for me, I also played my role in this little international chaos. I really wanted to have a beer, but didn't dare to ask for alcohol in an Islamic airline. It was just in the second flight that I overheard someone else order wine, so that I dared to ask for a beer. They gave me a Heineken.
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