Our final night was spent in the suburb of Petah Tikva, just north of Ben Gurion airport to make life a little easier for our morning flight the next day. Ryan decided to spend the night back in same boutique hotel as us rather than try to discuss his travel options back to the United States and then worry about where to stay the night.
On the drive to the airport the following morning, God blessed us with the most insane sunrise I have ever seen. Although it was shining straight into our eyes, the morning haze took away most of the glare and also made it look a lot bigger than usual. We dropped off the battle scarred Hyundai i10 back at Europcar and after exchanging some pleasantries and credit card details, were put on a shuttle bus to the terminal.
Based on the fact there were so few tourists in Israel, I had anticipated relatively light crowds at Ben Gurion, but I couldn't have been more wrong. I guess this is what happens when you cancel 90% of your flights! We stayed in line for well over an hour for the first of two security checks, the first being more of an interrogation rather than a physical one. We still had plenty of time to sit down for some breakfast at McDonalds once past the gate, or at least we would have been.. if it wasn't closed. We also tried our luck at a duty free supermarket, but abandoned this idea after discovering the ridiculous process of showing a boarding pass and passport just to buy a drink, not to mention the daylight robbery prices ($22au for a small bottle of orange juice?)
Israel to Turkey
Our first flight was on Turkish Airlines TK785 on an Airbus A330-300, enjoying a window seat. The flight was packed, but was over fairly quickly landing in Turkey International Airport on time just before 2pm.
Turkey to Singapore
Then the loooooooooooooong stop over began. Twelve hours of nothingness. Turkish airport were generous to allow ten minutes of free internet, so that brought it down to 11 hours and 50 minutes. Getting through it!
Istanbul Airport was dead which was interesting as Turkey had still not registered a single case of the China virus. A trickle of passengers here and there but almost on the brink of being deserted. We spent hours on seats and in the food court. Every single shop had two or three workers in it but we didn't see a single customer in any of them, except Burger King. The other two competing food outlets in the food court attempted to poach their customers, oddly by screaming at them. We survived the extreme boredom and moved to our gate for the final insult. A bus. We were crammed inside with another 150 people, each potentially carrying essence of bat.
The aircraft for our flight (TK54) was a new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, my first time on one of these. It was fairly comfortable and not too noisy, but in contrast to our opposite flights, the service was not so good and food was really not up to standard either. This was also the first time I would be flying eastward against multiple timezones and after getting a few hours sleep, it was still pitch black outside.. but weirdly 3pm. I soon figured out that the staff had dimmed the windows to pitch black (gone are the days of curtains), but my body clock was already long gone. Landing in Singapore in daylight was very nice and I particularly enjoyed flying over an armada of cargo ships in the harbour. Another added bonus was the sight of some Singaporean military aircraft as we taxied off the runway.
The transit in Singapore was quick and we had less than an hour to make our gate. The Singaporean's are much more generous with their unlimited free airport internet, but we didn't have enough time to exploit that.
Singapore to Australia
Our final leg was another overnight flight (QF36) on board a Qantas Airbus A380-800, again another first for me, despite my many international flights over the 15 years they have been around! Fortunately this flight was only at about 50% capacity and we had a whole row of seats to ourselves. Once again we landed on time and got through the airport with considerable ease. Unfortunately, but understandably, we were sent home to begin our two weeks of mandatory home detention.
And just like that, it was all over. From a place on earth like no other and into another with no toilet paper.
"And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." - Colossians 3:17
Continue to Part 30 - click here
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