Our flights would take us from Melbourne to Singapore with QANTAS (QF37 / A330-200), then Singapore to Tel Aviv via Istanbul (TK55 & TK784 / 777-300ER, A330-300). Each stopover would last around 90 minutes and thankfully all our flights were on time. At the time, very few people seemed to be taking the Wu-Flu particularly seriously, but we are very serious people so Vinci dressed up like the Unabomber, we both donned our facemasks and headed off to the airport.
Our QANTAS flight was excellent with a smooth ride and fantastic service. Night had fallen by the time we landed in Singapore and we quickly made our way to the gate for our connecting flight to Istanbul, another 11 hour slog.
Like QANTAS, Turkish provided a very nice flight with great service. I don't sleep particularly well on long haul flights, but was able to get a few hours amongst the barrage of announcements and meals. I woke up as we were right over the top of Tehran, hoping the Islamic Revolutionary Guard would have their fingers off the fire control button of their anti-aircraft missile systems. We touched down at the gigantic new Istanbul Airport and had precious little time to waste with a very long hike to the gate, as well as two security checks to contend with.
Our final flight into Tel Aviv was delayed for some time due to congestion and the longest taxi in my aviation history, some 23 minutes! When we were finally in the air, I tuned into my chosen movie, JoJo rabbit - a comedy set in Nazi Germany about a young boy with an imaginary friend (Hitler), a surprising choice of entertainment considering our destination.
More ironically, I had the film interrupted for an important announcement about the perils of wasting plastic. Some ten minutes later our breakfasts arrived with enough plastic to make Pamela Anderson jealous.
We still had one final challenge before my blood pressure would settle. During my research, I read of many horror tales of people being turned away by immigration for little or unknown reasons, but we found our immigration officer just asked a handful of generic questions regarding our travel plans and we were very quickly ushered through to collect our baggage and begin our adventure. A point of note for all you cat lovers out there ; passport control has four resident cats which can be seen sleeping on the baggage carousels or wandering around the controlled immigration areas.
We made it!
"A person may plan his own journey, but the Lord directs his steps." - Proverbs 16:9
Continue to part 3 - click here