stephen and gordon go to angola
Having blocked poor Mrs Fletchers pipes, ruined her sheets with Chilli sauce and dumped two of her towels in the railway station bin we boarded the train for Aberdeen to join our flight to Charles de Gaulle airport and onwards to Luanda.
We sat on the train suffering the after effects of consuming a vast amount of alcohol straight after being immunised for a catalogue of deadly diseases as well as taking anti malarial tablets. As I sobered up I realised that the toilet was probably still blocked and Mrs F was sure to miss her two fluffy pink towels so I hoped the handful of crumpled notes and coins I had left would be sufficient to cover the damage our brief stay had caused. It was probably not my finest moment but most definitely not my worst either.
Aberdeen airport in plenty of time for the flight but we were good boys and had coffee or rather we were feeling so lousy that we could not face a pint of beer, in fact even the thought of it made me feel sick. Charles de Gaulle airport was its usual unfriendly disorganised mess with the worst signage and most unhelpful staff in the world. Just over four hours to kill before our flight to Luanda so what to do?
Well the options in an airport are limited. Shopping? Well no I don't think we are going to buy overpriced designer clothes or jewellery on the way to offshore West Africa. No disrespect intended here but customs tended to work on a one for you one for me basis and the only upside is that your luggage is a lot lighter to carry when you finally get your bag back. So the only other things left to do are eating and drinking so we indulged in both. Yes we were already feeling ill so we made ourselves feel even worse by drinking heavily just before a long economy class flight to a country in the middle of a civil war
Replete, still feeling ill but in a cheerful mood we boarded our plane for Luanda and I was really upset because Gordon had worked his magic on the check in girl and had the window seat and I was stuck in the middle. Gordon was making the most of the fact that I was in the middle and as any slightly odd looking passenger approached he was wishing that they would sit next to me but they did not and the aisle seat remained empty. Everybody already had their seatbelts fastened, I started my celebration and then I saw him. He was huge, he was wearing a white and browny yellow shirt and he was shuffling down the aisle sideways because he was too big to get between the seats. I should say that the shirt had at some point in its life been totally white and the browny yellow colour refers to the sweat stains around his armpits. Gordon started laughing and I watched in horror as he approached, stopped, looked at the seat number and squeezed into the seat next to me. He overflowed over the armrest and was so fat that he could not sit with his legs together so one was in the aisle and one where my legs should have been. His shirt was not just stained, there was an acrid smell of unwashed armpits. At this point Gordon was laughing so much that he had tears running down his face and this just added to my foul mood. The plane eventually took off and I swear it needed more runway because of the bulk of the person sitting next to me. Sitting next to me is not exactly accurate because he was actually sitting on me.
There was a cute boy sitting in front of Gordon and he was playing peek a boo over the top of the seat and to be honest Gordon was winding up what looked to me like a potentially hyperactive child. It was always going to end in tears. The drinks trolley arrived and Gordon ordered a Bloody Mary whilst giving sultry meaningful looks to the stewardess and I ordered two gin and tonics. Gordon laughed even more when I struggled to find enough room to pour the tonic into my gin but to be fair he put his drink on his table and poured it for me. At that moment the hyperactive child he had been happily winding up, stood up looked at us and started jumping up and down frantically on the seat. It wasn't just the plane that was airborne it was also Gordons Bloody Mary and it landed upside down in his lap. Tomato juice stains are fairly evident on beige chinos and it was my turn to laugh. Karma I thought! I was squashed for the whole flight but he had tomato juice in his pants.
Gordon pressed the call button and the stewardess seeing the mess on his trousers gave him tissues to mop up the worst and told him to come forward and they would try to clean him up. Man mountain stood up and off Gordon went with a self satisfied grin on his face. I cannot verify what occurred because I did not see it but Gordon was away for ages and when he came back his trousers were a bit damp around the crotch but free of tomato juice. He then gave me a long story about the girls trying mop down his trousers whilst he was still wearing them but as this was making him visibly excited they suggested it would be better if he took them off. He then seems to have spent a considerable period of time posing around the crew area in his boxers whilst chatting up the stewardesses. Its difficult to travel, work and often share a cabin with this horrible little Geordie who always seemed to come up smelling of roses.
At last we landed and the plane parked out on the tarmac so we went down the stairs and the luggage was basically thrown out of the hold and we had to collect it and carry it into the terminal building ourselves. The atmosphere was tense and very unfriendly and we had already been identified as rich pickings for extorting a few dollars and rifling our suitcases.
The first problem occurred at the immigration desk. Gordon went first and had no problems, then it was my turn. I handed over my passport but before he had even opened it he had already started shaking his head. Your visa no good he announced, very big problem. I tried to explain that my visa was exactly the same as Gordons but he would not accept that and he confiscated my passport. Meanwhile the customs men were going through all the basic possessions we had brought with us for a very brief stay on the oil rig. One of them found my mobile phone. It was the latest Motorola at that time and very attractive so he held it up and said 'the is now mine'. A booming voice said 'put that back' and amazingly the customs man did exactly as he was told. A huge black man with an equally huge grin shook our hands and introduced himself as the Chevron representative who would look after us during our stay.
What a relief to see him and he said that we would soon be boarding a Chevron private jet to fly us up to their base at Cabinda. 'What about my passport' I asked. 'Don't worry just leave it to me' he replied. I did worry because the last thing you want is to be without your passport in a country like this.
The Chevron flight was an old Boeing 727 that looked as if it had been recovered from the plane graveyard in the desert but with no choice other than to go on, we boarded the flight.
To be continued
We sat on the train suffering the after effects of consuming a vast amount of alcohol straight after being immunised for a catalogue of deadly diseases as well as taking anti malarial tablets. As I sobered up I realised that the toilet was probably still blocked and Mrs F was sure to miss her two fluffy pink towels so I hoped the handful of crumpled notes and coins I had left would be sufficient to cover the damage our brief stay had caused. It was probably not my finest moment but most definitely not my worst either.
Aberdeen airport in plenty of time for the flight but we were good boys and had coffee or rather we were feeling so lousy that we could not face a pint of beer, in fact even the thought of it made me feel sick. Charles de Gaulle airport was its usual unfriendly disorganised mess with the worst signage and most unhelpful staff in the world. Just over four hours to kill before our flight to Luanda so what to do?
Well the options in an airport are limited. Shopping? Well no I don't think we are going to buy overpriced designer clothes or jewellery on the way to offshore West Africa. No disrespect intended here but customs tended to work on a one for you one for me basis and the only upside is that your luggage is a lot lighter to carry when you finally get your bag back. So the only other things left to do are eating and drinking so we indulged in both. Yes we were already feeling ill so we made ourselves feel even worse by drinking heavily just before a long economy class flight to a country in the middle of a civil war
Replete, still feeling ill but in a cheerful mood we boarded our plane for Luanda and I was really upset because Gordon had worked his magic on the check in girl and had the window seat and I was stuck in the middle. Gordon was making the most of the fact that I was in the middle and as any slightly odd looking passenger approached he was wishing that they would sit next to me but they did not and the aisle seat remained empty. Everybody already had their seatbelts fastened, I started my celebration and then I saw him. He was huge, he was wearing a white and browny yellow shirt and he was shuffling down the aisle sideways because he was too big to get between the seats. I should say that the shirt had at some point in its life been totally white and the browny yellow colour refers to the sweat stains around his armpits. Gordon started laughing and I watched in horror as he approached, stopped, looked at the seat number and squeezed into the seat next to me. He overflowed over the armrest and was so fat that he could not sit with his legs together so one was in the aisle and one where my legs should have been. His shirt was not just stained, there was an acrid smell of unwashed armpits. At this point Gordon was laughing so much that he had tears running down his face and this just added to my foul mood. The plane eventually took off and I swear it needed more runway because of the bulk of the person sitting next to me. Sitting next to me is not exactly accurate because he was actually sitting on me.
There was a cute boy sitting in front of Gordon and he was playing peek a boo over the top of the seat and to be honest Gordon was winding up what looked to me like a potentially hyperactive child. It was always going to end in tears. The drinks trolley arrived and Gordon ordered a Bloody Mary whilst giving sultry meaningful looks to the stewardess and I ordered two gin and tonics. Gordon laughed even more when I struggled to find enough room to pour the tonic into my gin but to be fair he put his drink on his table and poured it for me. At that moment the hyperactive child he had been happily winding up, stood up looked at us and started jumping up and down frantically on the seat. It wasn't just the plane that was airborne it was also Gordons Bloody Mary and it landed upside down in his lap. Tomato juice stains are fairly evident on beige chinos and it was my turn to laugh. Karma I thought! I was squashed for the whole flight but he had tomato juice in his pants.
Gordon pressed the call button and the stewardess seeing the mess on his trousers gave him tissues to mop up the worst and told him to come forward and they would try to clean him up. Man mountain stood up and off Gordon went with a self satisfied grin on his face. I cannot verify what occurred because I did not see it but Gordon was away for ages and when he came back his trousers were a bit damp around the crotch but free of tomato juice. He then gave me a long story about the girls trying mop down his trousers whilst he was still wearing them but as this was making him visibly excited they suggested it would be better if he took them off. He then seems to have spent a considerable period of time posing around the crew area in his boxers whilst chatting up the stewardesses. Its difficult to travel, work and often share a cabin with this horrible little Geordie who always seemed to come up smelling of roses.
At last we landed and the plane parked out on the tarmac so we went down the stairs and the luggage was basically thrown out of the hold and we had to collect it and carry it into the terminal building ourselves. The atmosphere was tense and very unfriendly and we had already been identified as rich pickings for extorting a few dollars and rifling our suitcases.
The first problem occurred at the immigration desk. Gordon went first and had no problems, then it was my turn. I handed over my passport but before he had even opened it he had already started shaking his head. Your visa no good he announced, very big problem. I tried to explain that my visa was exactly the same as Gordons but he would not accept that and he confiscated my passport. Meanwhile the customs men were going through all the basic possessions we had brought with us for a very brief stay on the oil rig. One of them found my mobile phone. It was the latest Motorola at that time and very attractive so he held it up and said 'the is now mine'. A booming voice said 'put that back' and amazingly the customs man did exactly as he was told. A huge black man with an equally huge grin shook our hands and introduced himself as the Chevron representative who would look after us during our stay.
What a relief to see him and he said that we would soon be boarding a Chevron private jet to fly us up to their base at Cabinda. 'What about my passport' I asked. 'Don't worry just leave it to me' he replied. I did worry because the last thing you want is to be without your passport in a country like this.
The Chevron flight was an old Boeing 727 that looked as if it had been recovered from the plane graveyard in the desert but with no choice other than to go on, we boarded the flight.
To be continued