Flying back to Finland

Before I take you through to our last phase of our journey, I wanted to share with you the last breakfast I had in New Delhi. I was joined by someone I admire from the bottom of my heart, a man who has worked tirelessly for "Integration" in India, and has been appointed by the President of India on this Task Force. A few years younger than me, a man of such dedication and drive is hard to find. A Stephanian, he holds his principles above all.

I speak of none other than John Dayal.

Many love him, others hate him, all for what he stands for - equality of all men and women on this universe.

Unfortunately, during my entire stay in New Delhi, John had been working on the front line in Orissa. He returned the day before I was to leave. As I was driving back, late in the evening from Gurgaon, John called to say he was back. I offered to see him the next day, but he held age above seniority and said he would come to see me on Friday morning.

He arrived while I was just starting my breakfast. He joined me and we chatted about what was right and what was wrong in this universe. John has all the taps turned on the correct way and his analysis of where the church, the administrators, the bureaucracy are going was spot on. I felt sorry that I could not be there to help him in his endeavours to make India a truly just and secular society.

I asked him to say a prayer before he left, but he insisted that I do so. I prayed with all sincerity for John and his work, which to me is one of the most important jobs being done in India. Good luck, John, and thank you for seeing me before I left back to Finland. Each moment that we had together will be treasured.

Now to the joys of international travel! :-)

We arrived at Mumbai airport on Sunday night well over two hours before our plane was to depart. As we entered the airport, a guy came up asked whether I wanted our baggage plastic wrapped. I first thought that this was a requirement, but when he mentioned he wanted Rs. 200 (€ 3) per bag, I realised that this was just a money making step and not one legally required.

This draws me to the point that we found different rules in almost every airport we went through, both international or Indian domestic. This shows that the "security" community is disorganized and does not really know what they want to do. They have stupid rules about not taking a bottle of drinking water through a security checkpoint. They even tried to stop Annikki finishing her bottle of water before she went through. In another instance, when the security guard saw her drinking the water, she let her take the bottle through.

The ways the bags are checked at each airport showed, to me, at least, that these dedicated men and women are just pawns in a game. They really do not know what they are doing. All they are doing is trying to do things in the guidebook that they have been given and they remember at that point of time!

Any terrorist would break through this "so-called" security system with the simplest of ease after watching how the guards operate. In my opinion, with all the present systems they are following, as rigid as they may seem, we are less safe now than we were before 9/11!

One of the steps in the British Airways check-in process is to measure the size of the carry-on bag. One of ours was larger than permitted, but a BA staff member waved us through when the junior at the machine was just about to start a bureaucratic storm. The guy who waved us through knew that it was us that would suffer by taking this larger bag through, as he knew it would not fit in the overhead locker and we would have to sit with it under our legs for the next 9 hours. He simply taught us a lesson!

Next was the checking in of our baggage. I had bought a bigger bag and loaded all the light weight stuff in it till it was bulging at the seams. The other two bags were standard size and weighed 15 kg and 19 kg, a total of 34 kg. But the large bag weighed 32 kg, making us 6 kg overweight, but more importantly there is a rule that no bag must weigh more than 23 kg or else you have to pay a “heavy bag” surcharge of US Sterling 30.

The check-in officer offered me the option to reassign the stuff in the large bag. When I opened it, I found I had my laptop bag in this bag. As everyone is allowed one hand baggage plus a laptop bag, I took out my laptop and, lo and behold, my bag was well inside the limit! Saved £ 30 but had the headache to carry one more bag through all the security checkpoints and especially, being a laptop bag, it meant taking it out at every point!

Check-in finished we moved on with our hand baggage in trolleys to Immigration. Just before Immigration we were stopped by a rather officious looking slip of a girl who told us that we could not take our trolley past her desk! We had to fill up some Immigration Cards, so I promptly parked the trolley at her desk and started to fill up our forms just there. She tried to shoo us away, to which my retort was, either you allow us to proceed with our trolleys to where we find a place to sit and fill up the forms or she would have to suffer me filling up the forms on her desk! I filled out the forms, took our luggage and went through Immigration. Then it was Security, and although it was a hassle, we were not stopped or hindered, just giving us room to think that how stupid all this process was, even if it was for own safety. There are so many simpler ways to carry out this process, but a lot of people are making money following this routine, so why change it?

On board the plane one thing really annoyed me. When the announcements were made asking everyone to switch off their mobiles, the guy sitting in row behind us continued to speak on his mobile. When the steward came and told him to switch it off, he sort of started an argument with the steward. The steward told him that a video telling him to switch of the mobile had just been played - but this guy continued to be difficult. Finally, the steward, in the most polite and firm way told him to switch it off. He pretended to do so, but as soon as the steward was on his way, I heard his phone ring. I turned back in my seat and glared at him, which sort of made him switch it off. If he had not, I would have told him that even if he was not concerned about his safety, I was concerned with mine, and that the mobile had to be switched off.

How stupid can people be as they think that ONLY THEY are above the law!

The BA flight from Mumbai to London was uncomfortable and the morning snack was atrocious. I wonder why BA even offers such a tasteless serving on their flight.

At London the change from Terminal 5 to Terminal 3 was another process of security checks, another set of rules. In this case I was stopped because my LG monitor, with no batteries or attached power source, was a cause for their alarm. I had to take it out and they reran it through their X-Ray machine, wasting everyone's time!

Then it as a long wait in the BA lounge till our flight to Helsinki was called.

We had slightly more room on this flight. We arrived to a snow-bound Helsinki at 16:30. By the time we cleared Immigration and Customs, it was just past 17:00 hours.

Levi was at the airport with our car. As it had been parked in the open in one of our Raantel rental apartments, the boot was frozen solid as the temperature was near -17 C. Annikki was not clad properly, so I told her to wait in the airport with Mika while I found a solution to opening the boot.

My first thought was to find a heated parking place and wait for 15 minutes while the lock thawed through. Then I remembered that we would have to take Levi back to where his car was parked, about a 20 minute drive from the airport. So I told Levi that if we drove there and back, the boot would open. So we went through that process and sure enough, the boot was openable when we got back.

I parked in a parking place near to where Annikki and Mika were sitting. I called Levi on my mobile. It was so cold that, as I was speaking, the mobile jumped out of my hands and flew quite a distance, such that the battery compartment opened and the battery came out. I managed to put the battery in but when I tried to start the mobile it reported that the SIM card was missing - the SIM had flown off in another direction. Even after much searching by Levi and myself - we could not find it.

It was after 8 pm when me managed to drive to a nice warm apartment. I went and bought another SIM and some dinner from the nearest Mac outlet - the first Mac since we had left Finland 2 months ago. Then was the process of trying to find phone numbers, as I had not saved my phone numbers on the phone but on the SIM itself.

We managed to find Annikki's sister’s phone number and Levi sent my new number to a couple of people who called me.

Now I am in the process of building up my phone directory again, but that is going to take time.

So if you want me to put your phone number on my new phone, do email it to me or send a text to +358 41 720 2850!

And so ended our holiday to India - Helsinki and back. My last entry on this subject will be to pay our tributes to the wonderful people who made this holiday possible. So stay tuned for that before I split back my blogging into the different streams, as earlier.