Monday, July 30, 2007

Waylaid in Podunk

On Saturday and Sunday, we had a lovely outing to the extremely scenic Halong Bay. We have a similarly lovely full blog entry along with photos that we will publish for that.

But in advance, we had to report some late breaking news from Josh's blackberry. Today (July 30) was travel day, as we flew from Hanoi to Beijing to meet up with Jon and Amy. Now, five hours after our arrival time in Beijing, we are instead marooned (temporarily, we hope) somewhere a few hundred kms to the South.

We thought we were on a direct flight, but it turns out we had a brief stop in Guangzhou where we went through customs and got right back on the same plane. After waiting on the plane for an hour, the flight attendants (reporting in both english and chinese) told us that bad weather was delaying our departure for 2 hours and we could not get off the plane. We finally got off the ground, but three hours later, we found ourselves circling...and circling...and circling...and now here we are, along with two hundred of our new non-english-speaking friends, in an airport terminal in...somewhere.

Updates to follow. In the meantime, at least we know that interminable flight delays are a universal form of suffering!

(Note: for any of you worried that we would go hungry, never fear - the airline has provided a fresher version of plane food to keep us at bay)

6 comments:

Ron said...

we are looking forward to today's updates- and photos - and hearing that you finally made it to Beijing!!!

Thleen said...

Oh no!!! I am impressed at what seems to be your composure during what sounds like a VERY frustrating number of hours. Hopefully, once you finally arrived, you got right back to dumpling sampling ...

Unknown said...

I hate travel issues...good luck. Keep eating!

Alexandra Stafford said...

that is terrifying. i'm so glad you had some food.

Brian Kelly said...

is china that big? i thought you could drive anywhere from beijing in a few hours. (isn't rest of it mongolia or something?)

so glad you kept those peanuts from the first
flight in your safari jacket pocket.

good luck connecting!

CDB said...

AHHH! Yikes! I am picturing you huddled in a corner of a crowded hut on the side of a dirt runway. I hope my assumptions are incorrect! Thinking of you as I soak myself in natural hot springs in the beautiful new mexico morning sun. xoxoxo