Going, ready or not!

Chinese Visa

First post this morning, ... er, we all get more than one postal delivery, don't we? I didn't realise we did here in the UK but we do. Special Delivery envelopes get the special delivery service you expect. Well, they do here on the Wirral. Back in Banbury, when I was having the passport Special Delivery'd I'd popped out at lunchtime to quiz the postie on what happens to SD if there's a mail redirection in place. He first noted that he had to run because it was five to one and SD is meant to be delivered by 1pm -- I thought it was just that it had to be signed for but there's a 1pm thing in the mix -- and he had another SD to do up the road and then went into an excrutiating child-like explanation of the details of the Royal Mail process for handling mail redirection taking him well over his 1pm target. Anyway, the point was that Royal Mail will do a special run of SD-only packets before the main delivery run if there's any risk of the combined run meaning SD's arrive after 1pm.

So, with this in mind it was surprising that the normal Wirral postie run of 10:30 had been advanced to 7:45 for SD packets (7:45!). He promptly did his normal run early anyway.

The upshot of all that was that I have my passport back with a Chinese visa in it. Some 30 days worth, usable before early September. So much for some very specific dates in all the application forms, based on which I thought the visa would be for very precise dates. At least (or I hope) therefore I have some leeway if there's any delays on the road.

Speed Awareness Course

Second post had a nice letter from the Cumbrian police offering me 3-6 points on my driving licence and a £60 fine or the option of taking a Speed Awareness Course for doing 48mph in a 40mph zone on the way up to see my nephews the other day. Dang! Dang about being done for speeding, that is. The place in question is a notorious stretch where the wide road rides up and down hills and the downhills into hamlets have 40mph sections on it and then you're back up to 60 on the way out. As I think back now there may well have been an orangey-yellow police camera van just off the road. I wonder if it was legal for them to perform traffic snooping there?

Anyway, in the modern age of enlightenment, rather than criminalizing misdemeanors, the police are keen to educate and offer courses (which you have to pay for -- under £80 albeit plus your time off work) rather than points and a fine. All good except I'm not going to be here for four months which they might get a bit sniffy about...

Money

Nationwide have been pretty good with my money -- admittedly, my reasons for using them has largely been restricted to use abroad where they have a solid reputation for not piling on the commission charges. All good.

I did, however, put some money in an "Instant Access ISA" some time ago. An ISA is a UK tax-free savings thingy. Even though it has appeared on my Internet bank account facility I've not taken a blind bit of notice of it until recently when, with funds running low, I thought it would be useful to spend it.

In the last couple of weeks, in an attempt to be able to spend it electronically and simultaneously maintain the tax-free status of the money I've had two "e-ISAs" created, filled in a form to transfer from the "Instant Access ISA" to the "e-ISA" and not had another form sent when I complained that nothing had happened to the first. When you're about to leave the country for four months money needs to be accessible.

It turns out that "Instant" only means instant if you happen to be standing in front of the teller in the branch office as I did this morning. Interestingly, even the teller had to write a cheque out for the contents of the account then pay it into the Internet bank account. No purely-electronic shuffle.

Come on, Nationwide, don't be rubbish.

On the plus side, the money was available by the time I'd gotten home.

Flights

Gulf Air's pot luck on flight availability ran a bit thin when I came to re-arrange my flights though to be honest the time taken to establish some basic facts with the English speaking operator (that was the only choice on the helpline: "Dial 1 for an English operator, {rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb}") won't have improved matters. I think I might have offered up my six letter booking reference ten times, all but the last time being using the phonetic alphabet "alpha bravo charlie etc." which is supposed to make things easier.

She was particularly flummoxed by my new passport number, 5044... I read that out several times before I finally realised that somehow she though I was saying L044... Go figure.

Never mind, we got there in the end, I'm rebooked in for late Thursday 16th June, arriving in Delhi early on the Friday evening.

I'll have a five hour layover in Manama in Bahrain where the air conditioned terminal may or may or allow me to acclimatize between the 17C of the UK and the 38C of Delhi.

I don't suppose I'll see much Arab Spring especially as the powers that be demolished the Pearl Roundabout sculpture that was a rallying point for the demonstrators. I imagine that would be one of the few recognizable features of the city visible from the airport.

There might be a Saudi tank rolling around the airport, though.

Bus

I have to get to London (Heathrow Terminal 4) and in this case it's the bus. Not that it's especially cheap. The bus gets the vote as word on the street is that the Virgin Pendolino trains are not luggage friendly and there's much palaver in getting to the train as well as bouncing around London across Tube lines etc.. I'm blessed with carrying two tyres (in an old TV box) a large suitcase and a carry-on bag crammed with as much cabin-legal stuff as I can to keep the other two below 30kg between them.

On the bus there's (should be) plenty of luggage space and will drop me at the door.

On the other hand, the bus' pricing scheme is odd. There are six trips a day (just how many people from Birkenhead want to go to Heathrow?). The first and last (which is an overnighter) are about 8 hours including a single stop (and bus change) for 90mins in Birmingham. These cost £45. The other busses have two stops/changes, take 10 hours and cost £31. Is the former really 50% better? Anyway, I have to take the former as it's the only bus that gets in suitably in advance of the flight taking off. I'll still have a four hour life experience opportunity in Heathrow.

What's Left?

That is all sounding complete and that I should be able to hit the road.

Not quite. There's the outstanding issue of having permits for the bike to enter China which my man is working on (last time I enquired). As everything has been electronic to date I'm assuming that I'll get the nod for the permits electronically as well.

In fact I don't really know what happens here at all. I assume I'll have some kind of paperwork to wave under the nose of the Chinese officials when I turn up or maybe my man will be loitering at the gate looking out for Westerners. Who knows.

Everything else is on the hoof: negotiating with Indian customs over the motorcycle parts in my luggage, getting the bike moving and up to the mechanics for some TLC and negotiating with different customs people to extend my carnet's duty-free period otherwise I'll get stung for customs duty when I leave India.

And then I'm really off!