I joined to my new company somewhere in first week of June 09. I was immediately made an offer to travel to Peterborough, UK for a short trip(around 6 weeks). Accepted it gracefully because of two reasons : one, it was my first onsite travel, two , it was a very short trip.
All the visa formalities were done in 3-4 days (Business Visa), but hold on, the dates of my departure was not yet confirmed !
It took another a week to confirm my dates and was supposed to travel in a short notice of 3 days. Oops ! I did not make any travel arrangements for my trip as the dates were not confirmed. I did not do any shopping as it would have cost me around Rs 15000 and did not want to block money due to uncertainty of traveling dates.
Since the day one I accepted the offer of trip, lot of questions were haunting my mind. What shall I be eating in UK being a pure vegetarian, what are the things I need to carry with me, how is climate will be, will it be too cold, what will be the mode of transportation to office, on the top how will be my 10 hrs flight journey to Heathrow airport from Hyderabad etc....
I talked to some of my colleague who has already been to UK and got some wonderful tips which really made my life comfortable(read my next blog). I was preparing the list of items to be carried from the day one although I was not sure whether I will travel or not.
I took off the next day when my tickets got confirmed and did lot of shopping keeping in my mind that the maximum checked in luggage weight is 23 kg (British airways) and cabin baggage is 6 kg(excluding your laptop).
I made sure that I am carrying a laptop with Wifi in working condition with microphone headset. I did buy a UK adapter because in India charger plug has round pin and can not be used in UK.This is very important becauase I immediately needed to pass on the message to my family in India once I reach to my destination I think gTalk/Yahoo messanger/sKype was the only convenient tool for me to do so. I did note down couple of free SMS message sites to send mobile SMS from laptop.
Then I started shopping for ration items like rice, pulse, spices,maggie(This is most important easy to cook item), soup packets, corn maize packets. I bought 2 litre pressure cooker as well to cook rice and pulse. I bought 0.5 kg Surf powder, Vimbar to wash dished,bathing soap, scrotch bites(to clean utencils). Important medicines like Calpol, Pudin hara, Cough Syrup, band aid, dettol was also in my buying list. The climate is very good during July - Aug in Peterborough, its summer there but Its like a winter of India and one need a light jacket and sweater. It rains very often so I had to buy an umbrella also(But I did not carry due to weight restrictions). I bought new jeans, T-shirts, a pair of formal shirts and trousers with new leather shoe... I should look professional before the client, right? I had to purchase suitcase and cabin bag as per the standards defined in British Airways web site. I did shopping whole day roaming in Hyderabad in my sweet car (Wagon R) all alone. As I sent my family back to home town few days back. While I was shopping one question was troubling me a lot : what will be net weight of my luggage once I do packing. So I bought one weighing machine also for Rs 500 from Home Town,Panjagutta. It was an average machine with error limit to +-0.5 kg.
I completed all my shopping as per my list and returned back to home at around 7 PM(I started at 10 am in the morning). Thanks to my wife who has prepared a good list of items before leaving to home, as if she has already visited to UK. Good wife will show their care to husband only when they need it.
Felt a bit relaxed, talked to wife and updated all my day activity, prepared maggie for dinner. Now the big task was a challenge for me ... packing and weighing. After an hour or so I started packing and put everything in big suitcase, including cloths. I put one pair of trouser and shirt , laptop, travel documents in cabin baggage. I happily started weighing the luggage. Whop ! the weight of checked in luggage came out to be 30 KG and cabin bag 6 kg(with laptop).I started reducing the amount of items like rice from 5 kg to 2.5 kg, pulse 3 kg to 1.5 kg, maggie from two jumbo pack to 1 pack, left salt packet, left green chick pie packet, left moong daal packet etc. I managed the weight of suitcase to be around 22.5 kg. I was not able to reduce further. For cabin baggage I left it as it is because I thought I will take out my laptop while it is weighed. Laptop itself was weighing more than 2 kg.
It was almost 1 am in the night and decided to sleep as I have to go to office next day and day after tomorrow(Saturday) I had early morning flight at 5.45 am.
I came from office early 4 pm from office and tried to sleep for few hours as I was supposed to start at 2.30 am in the morning for airport. Slept for 1-2 hours, talked to family and started preparing for journey at around 1 am. Cab came in time and reached airport by 3 am.
One of my colleague was also traveling with me. She gave me a call saying that her luggage is weighing more than 34kg and if I can manage to take some item.
We went to near to weighing machine, put almost all cloths in my my cabin bag, took some of food items and both of us could manage the weight of suitacse to 24 kg each, hoping that BA officials will allow. My cabin bag was weighing around 7 kg without laptop.
We went to British Airways counter, showed tickets, identity proof. They did allow our 24 kg checked in baggage and collected our boarding pass. They asked us to put our cabin bag in a box to verify whether cabin bag will fit into space provided in aircraft, but they did not weigh it, amazing....
It was 3.30 am. We filled up one custom for with details like passport number, our address during stay in UK, flight details etc. We proceeded for custom check. Custom officer did ask couple of questions, like where are we going, what is the purpose, when are we coming back etc and got clearance in 10 minutes. We went through security checking and reached to waiting lounge by 4 am. . We need to wait for another 1 hour 45 minutes ... At Shamshabad airport one can have facility of free WiFi connectivity for 45 minutes, but you need to contact Tata Indicom outlet at airport itself for keys. I did not try as I took small nap for around 45 minutes and spent another 1 hour in admiring new international airport....
It was around 5.20 am, BA airways staff started making announcements related to the flight. Started inviting the passenger in the sequence of Older passengers, Passengers having infants and kids. And finally seat number wise. The management skills showed by BA staff was appreciable. Finally our turn came and made a march for my FIRST INTERNATIONAL FLIGHT !
More in my next blog
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