Almost at Kathmandu (~30,000ft)

• Location: About an hour out from Kathmandu.
• Altitude: Midair. Guessing around 30,000ft (9100m)

A brief flashback: On the flight from Auckland to Singapore, the inflight entertainment was kind enough enough to keep me informed, in very specific detail, my exact altitude, location, and outside temperature. Presumably so in the event I wish to step outside, I'd know how to dress.

What struck me was as we made our way down from our cruising altitude, we passed by an interested height:

Yup, that is approximately the height that, in about two weeks, I'll be standing (and if you look closely at the top of the screen, you'll see the temperature it will probably be too).

When I'm up there, I'll have an annoying view-blocking mountain range underneath me, stopping me looking at sea level, so I took the opportunity to snap a photo of what I definitely won't see later on.

(Just in case I've not been totally obvious - that's just the ground in the photo, no mountain or anything)

Singapore Layover

It is such a pity that my time in Singapore is so short, not even truly arriving; merely transiting. Singapore is an island state, with a remarkable span of wealth and poverty. 5 million people are squeezed into this tiny island off the Malay Peninusula.

The flight to Singapore was long, and I did not remember to bring an eye mask in carry on. This has proven to be a significant oversight, the cabin does not darken fully. 

I am on an AirNZ 787, and whilst it is new shiny, it boast features that seem at odds for their purpose. Instead of traditional window shades, they sport special glass that dims by the push of a button - this is all well and good, but the glass absorbs the heat, so the sun shining in, whilst hidden, still heats up the space.

That brings me to the other point, and one which sounds like they stole the idea from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. There is no independent air control for each seat. The cabin is set "at a comfortable temperature". If you feel like you need a breeze, well, why would you? The cabin is a comfortable temperature after all. Any particular preference of having air blowing down on your face to counter the heat radiating from the window is merely a mistake on your part.

But enough whining, I am in Singapore, even if briefly, and if I can get Internet, this post will arrive.

Takeoff! (0m)

The journey begins... again.

This trip is to Mt Everest Base Camp. Yup, that Mt Everest. The target altitude is 17,000ft, about 5200m!

It's going to be a gruelling adventure, the altitude presents many challenges; but the first challenge, leaving NZ, and saying goodbye to those special to me, is achieved. 

I'm onboard AirNZ NZ282, heading to Nepal via Singapore. I arrive at Kathmandu midday local time, after too many hours in the air. You would think given that the previous entry in this journey is the fin to my flight to San Francisco, and the previous journey before that documented my around the world trip, a short 16 hour trip wouldn't to so bad!

Takeoff is shortly, and I have a lot of entertainment provided onboard, as well as a few audiobooks and videos on my iPhone (scary - no laptop this trip! Lugging a laptop up Everest, even one as light as mine, is not something I relish).

So begins another journey…

Where are all the sky scrapers?

Despite what this entry may say, it is actually still Thursday. I have discovered that when flying it is always Thursday.

The flight was incredibly quick, the 12.5hr flight was 11.5hr long. I think I shall write to United and suggest they enquire as to the shortcut our pilot found and put it as a regular thing. In truth of course we had a tailwind the entire way, hence the mild turbulence.

Landing was fine, I'm pleased to say that SFO is geared towards driving the passengers out of the airport in the quickest method possible. Immigration and Customs were surprisingly easy. I did find a mild frustration in trying to acquire a local SIM card. The only store I could find was closed (though it was 0615h at the time), and I strongly suspect the prices wouldn't be the best, given they appear to have a strong lock on sales.

Time progresses, this entry has been open all day…

Eventually - with the help of a patient info desk person - I managed to navigate my way to Mountain View. I suspect the info desk person may have helped hapless visitors like myself in the past, as evidenced by the slip of paper preprinted with directions to Mountain View.

By this time it was rapidly approaching a reasonable hour, and I managed to navigate my way to a decent coffee shop. Any illusions I held of a Mountain View being a busy metropolis of tall glass buildings and lights everywhere was shattered when what confronted me was more a large modern village. Don't get me wrong, eventually I found a mode of transport that presented a better view, but I wasn't expecting what I found.

This was not what I was expecting!

After inserting a sufficient quantity of caffeine, further illusions were about to be shattered. The table of geeks I was sitting at seemed a likely source of information on where I could acquire a local SIM. Mostly disturbing however was that my question was met with blank – and then puzzled – expressions. It seemed clear they'd never gone through the process of acquiring a SIM separate to their service provider locked phones. Suggestions such as CVS (think supermarket) and drug stores (selling alcohol and cigars???) were presented. 

To cut this technology fail story short, after trying multiple places recommended by multiple people at various other places, it finally dawned on me to try a local mobile provider store. 10 minutes later I walked out of a T-Mobile store with a brand new 3GB SIM. Cheers Gary, you served me well!

To sum up the rest of the day is easy: Sleep, Study, Eat, Sleep. Reminds me of University.

Somewhere over the North Pacific

Time: 0430h PST - The blog software doesn't like time travel, so I'm lying to it.

United has exceeded expectations, not that they were particularly high. I paid for upgrade to economy plus, it is a long long distance from AirNZ premium economy. I would put United's economy+ in the same category as AirNZ economy.

My cabin was only about one-third to one-half full, and therefore most people got to stretch out across at least two seats. I am in front of cabin, with a plethora of legroom, and have chosen not to change.

The meals were fine, I was most impressed to see vegetarian was a standard option off-the-cart. I mentioned this to one of the attendants and she did inform me it's not always, and I should book next time to be sure.

Desert afterwards was an ice cream, this stuck out in my mind because it had clearly been kept very very cold. Very very cold. I could not get at it for at least 10mins.

The flight crew have been marvellous. It's been a mildly turbulent flight, the seatbelt sign has been on I'm guessing around 1/2 to 2/3s of the time. Nothing serious, indeed I found it nice to sleep with.

A Single 10Ahr USB battery was enough to keep my laptop at 100% and recharge my phone when needed. 

In about 2hrs I should be on the ground in SFO, and ready to brace the other side of the airline travel experience (see previous entry). Normally I'd not expect too much trouble, but being US immigration, it could be days.

I haven't moved

So a few hours ago, I was flying over Russia. And now I'm still flying over Russia.... Russia is big... I'm glad I'm not trying to explore Russia. I'm now in what feels like hour 26 of this 12 hour flight. It's been suggested that because I normally sleep through the long hauls, this one feels longer.

Selfie! Again!

I forgot to introduce Joy before (I think I mentioned her in the last post). I met her as we disembarked from the Auckland to Shanghai flight, and of course we banded together to find our way. She too is on this flight, somewhere.


Oh, and Joy says "Hi" to Lucas and Skylar (I told her about my niece and nephew). Speaking of which.....



Mum, Skylar, Amy....... These are PANDA bears! (To anyone else reading, inside joke I'm afraid).

Unstuck in time

I have a watch on my wrist, I think its set to Shanghai time, I have my computer clock, I can't remember what time that is, but I think it's NZ time. I have a cellphone, it might be set to Shanghai time. I have no idea what time it is. Yes, I could simply check the timezone setting on almost all of the above (my analog watch sadly doesn't sychronise with any atomic clocks).

I do remember working out I have to stay awake for this flight, as I'll be landing at 7pm Germany time, and therefore I should sync my body-clock with local time. The meaning of "local time" sort of gets muddled up when crossing so many time zones. I'm just happy the planet isn't bigger, 24 time zones is enough (actually there are way more than 24 timezones when you take into account individual counties (and even counties!)).

So I'm somewhere... I don't even know on this flight, my inflight entertainment system is folded away (I'm in a bulkhead seat) and i don't trust it anyway - we apparently took off at 386m below sea-level... The Dead Sea is 418m below sea level. But that's as deep as you get. Actually, I just unfolded the screen and it helpfully shows a picture of the Earth, and I appear to be somewhere... somewhere over Russia.... Not exactly sure where.. I'm apparently at 36,000ft... Honestly, we could be on Mars for all I really know. It's dark outside. Probably are.

Ah yes, the ramblings on inflight tiredness. I at least acknowledge that this is a stream of consciousness blog.. Ramblings, I do believe that is the name of this blog, so it seems fitting.

On the inflight experience, well, obviously Wifi works, but at a cost of 12EUR, Emirates has it beat hands down. 1 second latency, about 20Kbps. I'm actually amazed at how well the Internet works in such conditions - I'm so used to 100Mbps and sub 10ms latency to all relevant CDNs. I suspect a Skype call would be out of the question though, not so much the latency as the jitter (around 200ms).

Anyway, I'm bored, watching movies on my laptop as the inflight entertainment systems selection didn't appeal.

Time: Unknown
Location: Unknown
Temperature: Unknown
Weather: Dark
Movie: The Lost Room (2006) - Miniseries - Very much worth watching.

Withdrawal

With the advent of (relatively) inexpensive satellite Internet, I'd like to point out that I can now get internet in the jungles of Peru, but I've found myself in a twilight-zone of non Internet called "Air New Zealand" :-D

Nah, I'm not really complaining (well, not that much). 

This is my first time on a Dreamliner (787) and it's a very shiny aircraft. Without turning this isn't a 1st world problem airline review - I prefer the 777's premium economy seating - though the 787s is nothing really to complain about. 

I fell asleep very quickly (indeed I struggled to stay awake for the evening supper), I'd deliberately made it a long day for myself, so I was pretty tired. I appear to have gotten a pretty good 8hrs sleep (good for airline sleep), and the person sitting next to me appears to have been acrobatic enough (and the seats far enough apart) to climb over me without waking me. Whooo.

Time: 1000h (NZ)

Location; somewhere over Okinawa near the East China Sea

Altitude: 38,000ft

Outside Temperature: -48

Speed: 865kph (537mph)

Movies Watched: Demolition Man (it actually stands up quite well)

Somewhere over Western Australia

I can't believe I'm doing this again in only a few weeks.

Location: somewhere over WA

Speed: 559mph (482kts 897kph)

Attitude: 39,000ft

Temperature: -51°C

Breakfast: Scrambled eggs, again

Movie: San Andreias

Oh, I'm in the air

Bit of a rough start to the flight. The crosswind was so strong we had to wait for it to die down before we could fly. The takeoff was a bit bumpy.

Anyway, this flight has wifi too, it's like we're in the future.

Altitude: 37,000ft

Speed: 547mph

Temperature: I dunno, cold?

Location: in the sky

Dark selfie

Pretty lights

Dubai to Dublin, pt 2

Ah the travellers dilemma. Sleep now, and not be able to sleep later, or drag out the conciousness for as long as possible. The novelty of this much flying has worn out. It actually wore out about 30,000km ago, but now it well and truely has worn out.

The first hundred million years were the worst.

Location: Somewhere between Romania and Bulgaria.

Speed: 888kph (550mph)

Altitude: 36,000ft

Heading: 300

Temperature: -52C

Distance To Destination: 3,200km

Distance From Departure: 2,733km

Sydney to Dubai, Pt 2

Location: somewhere near Kuala Lumpur

Altitude: 36,000ft (10,972m)

Temperature:-45C

Speed: 970kph (Mach 0.86) (584mph)

Heading: 295

Distance Remaining: 4830km (6h10m)

The overriding was actually ok, slept some without too much trouble. Not much thoughts any further since my brain is still fried.