Travels – Page 3 – Laurens Traveling

British Airways – The Rant

Unfortunately, I got to be the pet toy of a big company called British Airways, which royally and effortlessly screwed me over with joy from their mighty big company throne.

The incompetence and greed of this company cost me over 600 euros, 6+ hours of call time, and an optimism that those big companies were ‘not that bad’.

After all, they should have plenty of money for courses to train their people, and they should have plenty of research done how to optimize their service, one would think.
Being able to change the date of my ticket -after specifically having requested so on purchase (from the British Airways desk at the airport, mind you)- should be a possibility within one of the possible future worlds, I hoped.

Whether changing the ticket was possible or not seemed to fluctuate by the day, if not by the hour. One employee said it was possible, the next one said it was not.
Canceling the ticket, even worse. Not only was it possible and impossible depending on the employee I got on the phone, the way in which I would cancel was even more random.

I kept coming up with new ideas, new plans, my mind was peaking to explore and think about any good solution. I wanted to go home earlier, and more importantly, could save 600 euros.
To their great sadism, for every theoretically perfect plan I came up with, they jokingly threw new problems at me. I could have never imagined how many things they made up to obstruct me from simply changing or canceling my ticket.

I persisted and kept thinking and planning and trying and calling and trying and calling and calling and calling …
If you let people wait for that long, make your waiting tune of better quality, and a bit longer, please. I know it by heart now.

The joke? All failed.
All of the 10-20 different things I could come up with for all the various problems they threw at me, were not possible. I could not gain the 600 euros, I could not change the date of my ticket, I could not cancel, and I could not change the place of it.

I would have raged if I wasn't doing yoga — I would have raged if I wasn’t doing yoga

At one point I was talking to a random person, who was willing to help me out, to make the payment since my card didn’t work and the card I could use from my mother wasn’t allowed because it was on her name (so? I can pay ..), getting back with them on the phone after a 4 hour call earlier where they confirmed that I could change the flight – with date, airplane number, exact fee amount and all, ensuring me that multiple seats were still available – simple to laugh at me those 30 minutes later that it would now cost me 400 euros instead of 50 to change.

Just to give an idea of the mess it was! And that was just one thing.
But I’m sure I’ll laugh about it at some point.

In the meantime, please don’t fly with British Airways if you can – You would do me and the world a great favor.

Happy reading
– A poor me.

@Varkala – A mini paradise

Varkala.

A writing event under a full moon that shines perhaps as bright as the sun.
Even though the mere reflection appears to be a very source of light, the potence and power of it hangs there, in all its glory.

Shades of coconut tree leaves wave and dance in front of my eyes,
a strange light aura surrounds the mighty hanger.

Looking into many eyes that submit into acceptance of the already near goodbye,
an inescapable reformation of the inner while going through doors of unknown, with keys thrown from the sky the previous day.

Mild footsteps don’t care about the destination.
A wavering mind takes its occasional distance, bends into new possibilities.
The persistance of the scenery that forces its way to be seen, forces a flexibility, a freshness, a youth in a mind and body slowly turning rigid.
When any resistance is given up, when the now is entered and fully responsibly accepted and entered, something invisible happens…

–

Varkala is a touristy place.
And even though last year I’ve hung touristy places up there, ready to eat the fire of my wall of criticism, this time it’s coming more than welcome, if not only as a temporary escape from a madness most Westerners would immediately succumb to.

Due to off-season, the prices for rooms are extremely backpacker and low-budget friendly.
This comes in quite useful, as when throwing the monthly look at my account, I’m chanting mantras for all the Indian deities that I’ve remembered the name of, 3-4 out of maybe infinity.

Shiva Garden Home Stay - Proudly waiting until my laundry is dry — Shiva Garden Home Stay – Proudly waiting until my laundry is dry

But even if the rooms are quite cheap at the moment, the meals are high-season price (even though half the menu is ‘no possible’), a sundering 2 to 5 times the local price, which is a price I’m extremely willing to pay, giving it includes amazing sights, rest, and only a few minutes of being hassled per day (hell, I was prepared for a ton more).

Rented a scooter for 3 days to just enjoy touring around. The landscape at any random place around here is just something you would pay for. A scenery of green, clear blue skies, the wild waves a free orchestra with theater in the background. Just driving the scooter to nowhere was an absolute joy, and on top of that finding some strange places and deserted beaches, awesome.

Still, my daily adventures are slowly decreasing in count, as I’m staying longer in this paradise like place.
Today I did laundry and left a pants at the tailor.
Schedule for tomorrow: Check on that pants at the tailor.
Daily schedule: Do that yoga they learned at the ashram. Eat something tasty.

Maybe it’s getting time to move.

I met a bunch of Frenchies which were very interesting, but perhaps it’s for the best that they already left yesterday, since today I busted myself thinking in French – the danger zone.
Now all silliness aside, I’ve had quite the great time with them.
Meeting all sorts of people is quite the experience. Being vastly open for any way a human can be, seeing all these faces, hearing all the stories, it’s life teaching directly, without nonsense. It leaves impressions, it pushes intelligence in you.
No book can do the same, noone can tell you this.

–

Yoga.

Still don't know if I want to buy this one — Still don’t know if I want to buy this one

It’s something weird.
It feels pointless to talk about it, since it has given me such unique experiences, barely anyone has a clue what I’m trying to say and it can make me feel silly.
But nonetheless the experiences happened to me and I cannot deny them, whether I would want to or not.

So I’m going to be a good and crazy boy and do my practice 2 times per day just as I have been doing.
It’s been a pleasure to do anyway, and it even begins to feel necessary.

Life lessons in the yoga roof at Shiva Garden Home Stay

–

After a ton of rupees on data plan and abusing all Varkala’s wifi routers in every restaurant and guest house, I’ve regained the key pieces of my music collection.
As this writing is occuring, I’m listening and drifting away in some amazing pieces I’ve had to miss for a few weeks.

Not out of attachment, but when unconsciously sliding out of the habits of what used to give enormous joy, certain things just regain their value.
Certain things truly become new once you just let them slip to the back of the head. Yes, there they still are, maybe they still develop there, but when it comes back into experience it’s like something new yet familiar, a home coming in some house one always imagined.

–

Next stop: Cochin.
Perhaps I can take the train with a magnificent poet I’ve met, whose poems just were the words I never expected to read, but always hoped for. Something truly inspiring and comforting in it.

An expression as grand as possible, not only through words, but bending style and grammar, not attached to anything particular, just to nuance and precisely point to that meaning otherwise inexpressible. Yeah, that’s how it should be.
Not pretending to understand them, I sometimes might, and my fiery reading gives a comfort also for my own writing.

Let’s go.

I’m in a plane

So yeah, I’m hanging God knows how many kilometers above the ground…
Earlier I was talking to someone about being scared to fly, about maybe crashing, and here I am, up there, eating a delicious sandwich with Multifruit juice, listening to Samsara Blues Experiment.
The irony did not escape me, and I found the situation to be quite hilarious.

This is the smallest plain I’ve been in so far, and it was a little scary. I thought that propellers were only for WWII planes.

So here we are, high up in the skies, wondering how we’ll get down, alive or not.
Although this is safer and faster and all that, it still feels more scary to me.
Even after I’ve been explained multiple times how the physics make it work, I still just can’t grasp how this massive thing goes up, I don’t get it.

The view from upstairs on bangalore at night was mindblowingly awesome. One of the most breathtaking spectacles I’ve seen.
The city is massive and it was like an ungraspable light show. However, it was real life, organized streets and city blocks.

I felt so small and insignificant seeing this endless horizon of street, car and house lights, this demonstration of human life growing in an unstoppable way. The smallness of it, and the greatness.
The insignificance of it, yet the pride.

This ridiculous life is quite amazing. Hanging a few thousand meters up in the sky, getting Rollercoastered by turbulence, touching a square box that works on electricity and lights up, to form some words of language, as if I or whatever that is, is talking to someone.
I love this joke and do not understand why so many people take it so seriously.

Time to land and see if we make it. I’m quite scared.