"It is Aways Something" was a famous quote of Roseanne Roseannadanna, a character played by the late Gilda Radner, a member of the Saturday Night Live cast about 25 years ago.
She was a very entertaining character and if you have a moment, look at some of the skits of Rooseanne Roseannadanna on YouTube. It will help understand today's blog and they will make you laugh.
I arrived in Ankara after riding the all-night bus from Sinop. The bus was very, very nice by any standard. There were two rows of seats on the right side of the bus and to rip one row of seats on the left-hand side of the bus.
I was sitting on the left-hand side in one of the single seats. The bus departed the station in Sinop at 10:30 PM and arrived at in Ankara at 6:15 AM. The Ankara bus station was larger than the Ankara airport, and the Ankara airport serves a population of 4 million people.
After asking a few questions I found the shuttle bus to the airport and easily made the 15 mile trip to the airport for 8 lira, or approximately $4.00.
At the airport I again met with Mustafa Hakan and Sarper Kokten, the two Turkish tourist information representatives at the Ankara airport Tourist Information Office.
They were extremely helpful. This was the third time that I met them - the first time upon my arrival in Ankara, the second time on my flight to Trabzon, and then again this morning.
We sat and had tea and talked for several hours. Mustafa has applied to the VISA lottery to immigrate to the United States. His mother and father have already been selected by the lottery and immigrated to the United States four years ago, and are now living in Atlanta. Mustafa hopes that he is able to get his permanent VISA application accepted in the very near future. He has traveled throughout the United States on previous visits and is very excited about the opportunity to immigrate to the United States.
We talked about the US, Syria, the ISIS war, Sinop, Istanbul, freedoms in Turkey, the Saturn 5 rocket that repeatedly took US astronauts safely to the moon and back, Mustafa's life as a single man (he is 41), what he wants to do when he immigrates to the US, and on and on.
After several hours of sitting and talking with Mustafa and Sarper, I thought I would go to the Turkish Airlines check-in counter and verify that my backpack was within the allowable weight limits for my flight to Istanbul and the next leg from Istanbul to Kathmandu.
I was told by the ticket agent that a single bag allowable limit was 30 kg. I weighed my backpack - it weighed around 18 kg. My day sack had approximately 5 kg of electronics, food, and travel information in it, so I thought "I'm home free".
After getting a cup of coffee and spending an hour or two watching people, I thought it was about time to check my bag and get my boarding pass for my two flights. I always like to check in several hours before making an international flight to make sure that there are no problems with requirements for a VISA, that my seat is the seat that I want and that my checked bag has plenty of time to get on the airplane.
This is a checked bag story.........
I went to the Turkish airlines ticket counter and gave the ticket agent my printed itinerary that had the confirmation number, my name, etc., and my passport.
The ticket agent started typing my information in to the computer and I saw a rather quizzical look on her face. She contacted the male ticket agent (above, left) who was standing next to her and they had a conversation in Turkish. He looked at the computer screen and then he explained the following to me:
He asked me in English if I was traveling to Kathmandu on award points. This time, I was the one with the quizical look on my face.
I said, "Yes I am". (I have made it to Ankara from Portland for less than US $50 using travel award points).
The male ticket agent told me that there was no allowance for a piece of luggage with my tickets using award points. I said "I am flying domestically in Turkey from Ankara to Istanbul and then internationally from Istanbul to Kathmandu. I cannot believe that both a domestic and an international flight do not allow me to fly one piece of baggage".
He again looked at the computer screen and then made a quick cell phone call. He said to me "You need to go to the ticket counter down the terminal and pay an excess baggage fee to ship this bag". It was just my backpack that weighed 18 kilos.
I made a bit of a stink, although it was a polite one, and asked how much the fee would be for my bag. He said it will cost $15 € (Euro) per kilogram. I did a quick calculation with my iPhone - €15 times 19 kg is €285. €285 converted to US dollars was US $360!!
On the one hand I thought "Well, I made it halfway around the world for only $50. If I have to pay $360 to fly my backpack 6.5 hours to Kathmandu it's still a pretty cheap flight".
But $360 American dollars is a lot to ship one bag that weighs less than 40 pounds.
I thought for a moment.
I asked the agent if it was possible for me to carry on most of my luggage. He said "Yes, you can carry on two bags."
I again thought for a moment. I have a second bag in my backpack that I can put a large amount of stuff in, and still meet the dimension requirements for carryon - and I can put the rest of the stuff in my day sack. I will then almost empty my backpack and I can ship my empty backpack for €15 per kilo and avoid paying the outrageous price of $360.00.
The soultion - I will carryon everything except my backpack in 2 heavy bags.
I left the ticket counter and found a secluded place in the airport to unpack all of my bags and repack everything into my day sack and to the second carryon bag. I thoughht about the Chinese travelers that I witnessed only 15 minutes into my 101 day journey and on my first blog. I discarded all my travel food - oranges, nuts, fruit - then all the excess paper, plastic bags and other miscellaneous things that could easily be replaced.
When I was done I reduced my load by almost 7 or 8 kilos, had everything in the two carryon bags and my backpack was empty, with the exception of my Leatherman knife.
I then returned to the ticket counter and put my empty backpack on the scale and it weighed 2.3 kg. The female ticket agent looked at the empty backpack on the scale and the two stuffed carryon bags and she laughed at me. I laughed at her.
She gave me new billing tickets for 3 kg (weight rounded up, of course) for the backpack and told me I needed to go to the ticket counter down the terminal and pay the fee for my 3 kilogram empty backpack.
I left my backpack at the ticket counter and went to the other end of the terminal to pay the fee for the empty backpack.
I walked up to the ticket counter and told them that I had several pieces of paper from the checkin counter and I needed to pay an excess baggage fee to ship my one piece of luggage on my flight to Kathmandu. The agent spoke very good English and I said to him "This is hard to believe - that I have been able to fly halfway around the world with this bag, on reward travel points with no baggage fees, but now I am being charged for an empty backpack. Why must I pay a fee of $56.00 American dollars to ship one piece of luggage weighing less than 3 kilos on my flight to Kathmandu?"
By now I had burned up at least an hour of my two hour window prior to my flight. The agent left the ticket window and went back to an interior office, but he was still visible to me through the glass windows. I saw him make multiple phone calls and go and do work on a computer multiple times. This all took about 25 minutes. I had already provided 150 lira or about $70.00 to pay the $56.00 up charge for the single piece of luggage - my empty backpack.
I looked at the time on my iPhone and thought "Its getting late, I need to get going. My flight leaves in 30 minutes."
I tapped on the window pointed to my wrist and motioned to him that I need to go and he waved at me and looked at the computer one more time and made one more phone call. He came back to the counter and said "I am very sorry sir, there is no charge for the one bag. Please return to the ticketing counter and ship your bag. We made a mistake. I'm very sorry."
I walked back to the other end of the terminal and went to the ticket counter, stood in line said, "I was told at the other ticket counter that there will be no up charge for me shipping my one bag on my flight to Kathmandu. I would like to put all of the stuff that I have in these two bags back into my backpack and ship it on my flight to Kathmandu."
The agent looked at me and said, "It is less than 20 minutes until your flight departs and your bag is already on the airplane."
I hurried from the ticket counter through security with my two bags. As I put my two bags on the scanner belt, I thought, "Oh shit, these 2 bags contain all of my toiletries - liquids, gels, a full water bottle etc. I know this will be a problem."
Amazingly, I made it through the scanner with no problem. I hurriedly grabbed my bags and as I was walking to my gate I heard the final boarding call for my flight to Istanbul.
I was one of the last passengers to get on the airplane. I thought "It is a good thing that I started the booking and check in process two hours before my flight time". If I would have started with any less than two hours I would have missed my flight or else I would have paid a fortune to ship my bag.
Such are the trials and tribulations of international travel.
In the end it all worked out well. But, as Rosanne Rosanna Danna says,
"It is always something."
I would love to hear from you.
Namaste
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