It is Better to Travel hopefully..............

Sunday 29th April 2007

Better to Travel Hopefully.....................

Sleeping in an airport is never ideal but Cardiff airport is more comfortable than most. It's small and rather intimate and kept spotlessly clean by enigmatic cleaners who glide up and down obsessively passing their mops back and forth on the already gleaming floors. The last flight of the evening has landed and has disgorged its weary passengers. They stagger down the steps clutching their furry camels and duty free bags, bulging with clinking bottles and cigarette cartons. Once through the formality of customs they scurry out into the darkness blinking like moles in the sodium glare of the streetlights. The blackness swallows them up and they disappear into the anonymous night.

After 11pm silence descends and the airport takes on the feel of a huge, ultra modern cathedral, with its high ceilings and hard, shining floors. Muffled whispers rise upwards from the arrivals hall, and bounce, echoing off the walls of the deserted waiting rooms. The disembodied singing and chattering of the fruit machines interrupts the frequency. Their coloured lights flash invitingly, but there are no takers. In the pub barman wipes the tables, empties the ashtrays and pulls down the security grill. Time to bed down for the night. The Sloth has located an excellent spot in sight of the loos and next to the little cafeteria. We'll be at the front of the queue for coffee in the morning and hopefully for the check in.

We pass a quiet night broken only by tossing and turning on the hard seating and the arrival of a group of bored night workers who begin playing the fruit machines. Perks of the job obviously! At 5am the coffee shop opens and people are stirring on their beds of pain. There's a mass exodus to the loos then we all go down to check in our bags. Sleepy passengers form an orderly queue. We are British after all. Passports are checked and tickets issued with great efficiency. The Sloth smiles his 'little boy lost' smile at the check-in girl and we get two aisle seats together. It's great for my gammy knee which I can stick out into the gangway (there by tripping up the flight attendants) and brilliant for the Sloth's frequent trips to the loo after copious amounts of red wine. Check in completed we surge up the steps to the departure lounge with nothing on our minds but a large mug of frothy Capuccino. At the top of the stairs our path is blocked by a man and woman with fixed smiles frozen on their faces, clutching clipboards. They step forward determinedly and begin to batter us with questions. 'What's your name and address?' 'Post Code? 'How much money do you spend a week?' What a cheek! I brush them aside but the Sloth, ever the 'gentleman', stops to answer the woman's questions. To his great delight she flirts with him shamelessly and he answers all her questions enthusiastically. I try to intervene but he shushes me and I wander over to the coffee shop. Some moments later he appears, rather red faced and puts a completed request for a credit card on the table. Naturally, I fly into a rage. We don't do credit cards and I insist he go back and cancel the thing. He goes back reluctantly and is away some time trying to persuade the woman to cancel the application. Let that be a lesson to him!!!

As the plane touches down in Monastir the passengers look eagerly through the windows for signs of that relentless North African sun beating down on scorching sands. They've come prepared with their high factor sun creams and an assortment of odd -looking hats. But the skies are grey and overcast and there are puddles of water on the runway. A cool wind whips round bare legs reducing the anxious visitors to shivering wrecks! Clutching their flight bags firmly, they board the transfer bus asking each other 'Where's the sun then?' What's happened to the weather?' 'Thought it'd be roasting hot, didn't we mother?' 'Must be that global warming they're always on about!'

For those hapless and exhausted tourists the arrival at Monastir airport can be at best confusing and at worst traumatic! Today it was confusing. The flight staff has omitted to issue the visa cards to be filled in before landing. This means a frantic scramble to grab the cards followed by a furious scribbling. The air is rent by cries of frustration as people discover they haven't got a pen or their pens have dried up or their pencils have broken. Finally, unusually cheerful officials herd them through passport control. 'Oh! You come from Manchester?' asks the Tunisian. His brown face wreathed in smiles 'You know David Beckham yes?' A tall, emaciated girl snatches up her passport. 'Ah'm from Liverpool, me', she says in a sing song voice.

Three planes have landed simultaneously causing gridlock at passport control. A heaving sea of frustrated human beings fills the arrival hall and it becomes warm very quickly. The good -humoured atmosphere begins to disintegrate and voices are raised in protest. The heavily built man in front of me begins to growl. His grey T shirt has dark patches on it. Rivulets of sweat trickle slowly down the tattooed snake on the back of a neck that Mike Tyson wouldn't be ashamed to call his own.

Just when things look as though they're going to take a nasty turn, the sweltering crowd shoot forward in one great peristalsis movement. The harassed officials, dab at their shining faces with moist handkerchiefs, and usher them through the security scanner. Sensitive to our car keys, rings, watches, gold necklaces and gold teeth, the scanner immediately sets up an alarming high pitched whine as we all stumble through its vibrating frame. Feeling a breeze on their faces, the passengers charge through baggage collection and finally fall gratefully into the waiting arms of the Thomas Cook reps. They stand there with cheery smiles, in their pretty blue uniforms and newly peroxided hair, holding up placards with 'Hotel Sofia' or 'Hotel Omar Kayham' They lead their charges away to the transfer buses and pack them on like children on a Sunday outing. Exhausted by their welcome to Tunisia, heads loll back and a gentle snoring fills the coach.

'Anyone for the hotel Phoenicia?'