On the lighter side of London trip

From the comfort of my Abuja hotel room, I just switched on my laptop, opened the British Airways’ website and booked my flight. Payment was a few metres away at a Guarantee Trust Bank branch, and I was through with it within minutes. It saves time, energy and a hundred US dollars’ office charges. You […]

From the comfort of my Abuja hotel room, I just switched on my laptop, opened the British Airways’ website and booked my flight. Payment was a few metres away at a Guarantee Trust Bank branch, and I was through with it within minutes. It saves time, energy and a hundred US dollars’ office charges. You may think $100 isn’t much, considering the way the greenback is depreciating against other international currencies (though not against the Naira), but if, as in my own case, you are on an entirely self-funded recession-time trip, a $100 saving could be economically meaningful.

On the departure day, I rushed to Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport before 7am to beat the 8:30am flight time. Immigration and Customs checks were smooth. I also checked in my baggage at the British Airways’ desk in the airport without hitches, although I was angered by one of their staffers who allocated a middle seat for me, when I actually preferred a window or aisle seat. I partly blamed myself, though, for not picking my seat and boarding pass online to avoid this kind of disappointment.

Anyway, as I walked to the departure lounge, I tried to be positive about it when I began to image myself being sandwiched by two young ladies in the plane.

It wasn’t a farfetched idea when you see the huge number of beautiful girls waiting to board that plane.

I don’t have any statistics to prove it, but my recent experiences indicate a trend of rising female passengers on international trips, while that of the males seems to be on a decline. Perhaps the women’s economic power has improved, perhaps their inquisitiveness has increased, perhaps their persuasive power has soared, perhaps their competitiveness in business and other spheres has gone up – it is hard for me to say – but I did notice the growing rise in their figures. They probably outnumbered us in this particular trip.

I was making my ‘sandwich’ imagination, when the call for boarding was made. I grabbed my hand luggage and joined the queue. It was quick and smooth; and within minutes I was standing by my middle seat.

Low and behold, one beautiful lady was already sitting on the aisle side of the seat – the window side passenger hasn’t yet come, and I was expecting that she too would be as beautiful as the aisle one.

It was too early for celebration, though, because as soon as the aisle passenger realised that I was going to sit near her, she gave me a terrifying look that instantly depressed me. I put my bag in the overhead compartment and sat down without saying a word to her.

I then turned my head towards the window side and behaved as if she didn’t exist. The trick worked.

Probable having realised that I had no obvious interest in her – and she possible wanted a little attention – she relaxed and began to warm up to me.

“Oh, sorry,” she chuckled, “I sat on part of your seatbelt,” she said and pushed the part towards me.

“Oh, don’t worry,” I said. “Thanks a lot,” I smiled as I took the part of the belt.

She smiled back. It was a positive turn.

But before we added a word to each other, we noted an exchange taking place in the row in front of ours.

A very beautiful girl had come and was telling a passenger sitting by the window side that he was sitting on her seat. She brought out her boarding pass to prove that she was allocated an A slot in the row. She was a very charming young lady and was speaking to him in a polished and polite manner.

We noted that she was right and said so.

I also suddenly realised that I was supposed to be on that row, not on the one I was sitting. I brought out my boarding pass, re-checked it and the row number: I belonged to the charming girl’s row.

I quickly relocated to that row and sat in the middle, with the charming girl by the window and the dislocated chap on the aisle seat. Not a perfect ‘sandwich’ scenario, but one charming girl is better than two frowning faces, I told myself.

She wasted no time in proving that, as she welcomed me with a broad smile and engaged me in a lively conversation, in an apparent appreciation of how I sided with her over the seat dispute.

“I am going to New York,” she told me.

“Mine is London,” I told her. “Will you be staying long in the States?”

“No,” she said, “two weeks there, another two weeks in the UK, and back to Nigeria,” she smiled broadly again, revealing her well-set teeth and big bright eyes, brightening her rosy cheeks.

“Well, I will be slightly longer in UK,” I said as the plane began to taxi in preparation for the take off.

That’s all she could take from me. As the in-flight staff began to babble out their safety instructions, she shifted her attention to them.

And as the plane began to take off, she brought out a headscarffrom her hand bag, covered her head, closed her eyes and began a deep prayer.

I was waiting for the plane to complete its take off and stabilise for us to resume our lovely conversation – midair. We were told that the weather was fine and the flight wasn’t expected to be stormy.

Midair, the sky was blue and bright and clear; our plane was in a stable condition; and we were relaxed: a perfect time for the midair lovely conversation. I was wrong.

I tried to revive the conversation, but noticed that the charming girl had no interest in that. She was busy searching for something in her bag.

I saw her took out two big books: a Holy Bible and another Christian book, dealing with how to avoid earthly things – I can’t remember its title.

She carefully placed the two books on her lap, opened the Bible and buried her head into it, deeply engrossed in reading. The charming girl was an evangelist.

No lovely conversation.

I was in no mood to turn to my aisle neighbour – he didn’t even seem happy with me because I wasn’t on his side over their window seat dispute.

I turned and looked back at my former seat on the back row. It was empty. By the window side sat one fine lady while the girl on the aisle seat was still there, with no frowning face. What an irony: a perfect ‘sandwich’ scenario – without me in the middle!

I felt like relocating again, but I know it would be utterly ridiculous to do so. I resigned myself to my fate: five-and-a-half hours in a crammed place with gloomy thoughts.

I then turned to the in-flight entertainment, switched on the television and looked at the tiny screen on the back seat of the front row.

One romantic film was in progress. I quickly flipped to the next channel. After my current disappointment, romance was the last thing in my mind. The other channel was a comedy featuring Eddie Murphy and a dwarf I had never seen. I was in no mood for a comedy either. I switched to a sport channel and grudgingly watched old field and track events before I slept off. That was the only relief I got.

I had made a mistake of entering the plane with no reading materials. Next time, I promised myself, I will enter with a copy of the Holy Koran in my hand luggage. It was an interesting lesson I had learnt from the ex-charming girl.  

Apparently, I wasn’t the only person who felt lonely in that plane. The guys in the first class and business class sections too have apparently got their own bad experience. The two sections were virtually empty in this trip. There were very few passengers in them.

One of them, a top Nigerian government official, who was going to US for a seminar along with other lower ranking officials who were sitting near us in the economy class, spent most of his time in the economy class chatting with the other people. He was apparently tired of sitting alone in his near-empty business class section. For once I noticed how poverty triumphed over riches.

Don’t get me wrong, though. I love travelling first class. For one, it rescues you from the airline sharks who pack people into rows upon rows of tiny seats like sardines, as they do us in the economy class.

Secondly, you get preferential treatment from the flight staff in the meals service and the kind of reverence they show when talking to you. And thirdly, let’s face it, first class confers on you a special status that puts you a step ahead of the other folks. You won’t understand what I mean, until you experience it.

I had travelled first class five times (twice locally, twice on the west coast and once on an international route) and I know what I enjoyed. I would have loved to do same now, but economic recession and my current status (as a research student) deprive me of such luxury.

Anyway, whether in the first or the economy class, the arrival time is the same. We landed at the Heathrow Airport before 3pm, but had to spend extra time in the plane waiting for a parking space due to the high rate of flights and the repair works going on at the airport.

I bid goodbye to my Bible-reading neighbour and walked along with other passengers to the immigration checkpoints for entry clearance.

The queue was long, but it moved very fast because there were many border agency officials handling new arrivals. People were being called quickly, and I was waiting for my turn with a dread.

Because of the humiliation I had received last year in the hands of one nasty British border agency staff, I had prepared my mind this time for any sort of confrontation.

Last year, the staff, a middle-aged woman with Asian features but perfect middle England accent, had subjected me to humiliating interrogations and verbal assaults until I snapped and snarled back at her before she allowed me in.

This time around, I told myself, I wouldn’t even give anyone a chance to abuse me. I was prepared for confrontation.

When my turn came, an elderly male staff waved me to go to desk “Number 8”.

From where I stood, I could see that the desk was being manned by a female staff.

“Oh dear,” I told myself, “I don’t want a woman, I want a man to handle my case”. Last year’s experience would never get out of my mind.

I walked briskly – as I did last year – to the desk. But, unlike last year, I neither smiled nor greeted the officer when I handed her my passport. I stood akimbo and showed a frowning face, expecting an unfavourable comment from her.

“Good afternoon,” she smiled at me.

She is a tall refreshing White English girl, possibly in her late 20s, with blond hair and lovely eyes.

“Afternoon,” I said softly, trying to hide my excitement.

“I can see, you had lived in UK before,” she said as she flipped through my passport booklet.

I said she was right.

“Where will you be staying now?” she asked.

“In London,” I said. “I have stated the full address in my immigration card.”

“Oh, sorry,” she smiled again and glanced at the card.

“Can you remove your eyeglasses?” she asked politely.

All the photographs in my passport were done without glasses, and I was wearing semi-dark spectacles now. I removed them.

Her lovely eyes stared into mine.

“That’s fine,” she said as she stamped the immigration card and handed back my passport to me.

“Enjoy your stay in London, Mr Abubakar,” she added with a parting smile.

Never in my life had I ever met a nicer immigration officer.

I was so impressed I wanted to ask her for her address for future contact, but I didn’t want to push my luck too far.

I thanked her and moved downstairs to collect my baggage, still wondering how did the Brits manage to get such a nice lady to be doing such a great job for them?

It was a wonderful experience for me – a sharp contrast from last year’s hostile encounter with an aggressive immigration staff.

At the baggage reclaim unit, I took my bag and walked through the “Nothing to Declare” side of the Customs section. None of the customs officials talked to me as I passed them with my luggage.

Outside, a crowd of recession-hit cab drivers were looking for passengers. I was contemplating to either take a black taxi that could cost me about £100 for a drive to Bayswater in Central London where I had booked for a hotel room online, or charter an unmarked cab that could cost anything from £50 to £80.

I decided against both, walked to a train ticket office and purchased a £16:50 ticket for Express Train to London Paddington Station. It’s clearly cheaper and faster; and with few passengers in it, we had a whole coach for only three of us: one giant Frenchman, one balding Brit and yours sincerely.

At the Paddington Station, I used my old travel card, which had still in it over £20 left since last April, and took another train to Bayswater Tube Station, which is just a few metres away from my hotel.

It’s already autumn in the United Kingdom, and the cold breeze and drizzle that contrast sharply with the all-year-round summer in Nigeria, particularly the hot humid weather of Yola, Adamawa State capital, where I had been few days before this trip, gave me an unpleasant welcome.

My Uzbek friend, who learnt of my arrival and was aware of my regular complaints about volatile British weather, sent me a text, teasing me of a weather shock.

“I am expecting it,” I replied, trying to downplay the shock. “See you soon”.

I was in no mood to be out in that weather, so I threw myself on bed and recoiled for the rest of the night.

The following day’s weather was much better. The autumn sun was bright and generous. The Queensway Road in Bayswater was brimming with people of various nationalities, combing its shops and multitudes of restaurants.

I joined them and loitered around the area to get acclimatised before walking to the nearby Kensington Gardens. While there, I peeped into Kensington Palace, the former abode of Late Princess Diana, where I expectedly saw tourists touring the place and taking pictures.

I moved down to Kensington Street where I did some window shopping at its expensive stores before walking back to Bayswater station where I took a train to Westminster University to meet my colleagues.

We weren’t many that day, but the diversity of nationalities was enough to make a full-blown international conference.

There were two Britons, three Chinese, an Egyptian, a Dane, a Moroccan, an Indian, an Irish and my humble self (a Nigerian) in a small hall. We spent a good time talking and laughing before I returned to my abode.

Later in the day, one of my Arab friends sent me a welcome text, suggesting an outing the following day, and a Chinese friend suggested a dinner at any restaurant on Oxford Street.

I suggested that the dinner be done at an Indian restaurant in Bayswater. We settled for that, and had a nice time together. London was fast recovering from its recession.

Well, that’s before I came across a short news item in the papers on what they called the surge in “recession-fuelled burglaries and car-thefts” in the city. They said such crimes had risen by nearly 10 per cent in the city as a whole, and by as much as 40 per cent in some deprived areas of East London. But, they said, the rate was going down in Fulham and some wealthy areas of the city.

Thank God, I sighed with relief, I live in Central London where the crime rate is low and policing is usually at its best.