Travel Stories

When you're traveling a long way, as I am, in this case half way around the world (any further and you're repeating yourself) you'd be wise to uh, observe certain rules, so sorry.

Number one, if you're sitting in a window seat all the way, as I like to do (ask me why!) you don't want to eat a large meal less than 8 hours from taking off on your first leg. Secondly, I'd highly advise not eating any more than a croissant or some peanuts for the rest of your journey. Do not be tempted by those delicious airline treats. Do not stop at the hamburger stall in your 1-km dash from terminal to terminal to get your international leg.

You will regret it. And everyone around you will regret it. Because at some point, there will be an urge. And the urge will come almost always when everyone else has the same urge, or when everyone else is sound asleep, or when you are just about to enter a realm of unexplained, hellish turbulence not related to your insides.

So just don't do it. Consign your last meal to at least 8 hours before your first flight.

Do not drink beer. If you must drink, drink wine. It comes in those neat little bottles, not those pop-top cans which threaten to slide off your Happy Tray every time your seatmate reaches for his magazine.

Yes. I KNOW you still have seven hours to go, but this is not the time to request a six-pack to help you sleep and then have to crawl under your seatmates' knees every time you want to go to the bathroom. This is not a baseball stadium.

And never mind the rush for the bathrooms -- you won't need them. Thus, you will do what any sane passenger does at all times -- keep your seatbelt fastened, to avoid leaving a brain-print on the overhead luggage rack when the plane inexplicably plummets 2,000 feet in thirty seconds out of nowhere.

Oh, the reason for the window? Because your seatmates will have absolutely nowhere to put their tired heads when they want to go to sleep, whereas you'll have that mohair blanket you brought along to cushion you against the window as you sleep in sleeping-pill, toilet-free bliss.