50 hour journey

It's been more than one and half months since, that I made it to Brazil and made it back to the UK in about 50 hours. That uh-mey-zing trip was not as amazing as it should have been.
2 hours to Heathrow, 3 hr check in, 12 hr flight to San Paulo on route to Rio de Janeiro. Never got to Rio, denied entry at immigration because as a Singaporean, I needed one no matter the purpose of the visit, tourist or otherwise, when the brazilian airline I flew on told me I did not need one.
Frantic 6 hours trying to enter the country (was suppose to help a uni mate shoot a documentary; he shot it in the end), pulling strings, considered plans to go to Buenos Aries to do a round robin and get a visa in, but decided against it (language, unknown, time, money). 10 hours waiting in a 'restricted area' with someone watching me all the time in case I made a run for it. 2 hours waiting at the gate to get back my 'airline impounded' passport and airticket before the 12 hour flight back to london.
A moment of feeling relieved at being back in the UK(which is weird for me), 45 mins at Heathrow immigration queue, 5 mins of sympathy and advice by the UK immigration officer(I had a strong case), 30 mins of giving my mind to the assistant station manager of the airline that put me on a 24 hr roundabout flight, and 18hrs in an airport (tiny, in comparison with tom hank's character).
1 hour typing an email making my case against the airline. 3 weeks of haggling and negotiating.
2 weeks of getting documents in place.
'7 working days' to get a proper full refund of the airticket, as well as expenditure and expenses incurred to make that 50 hour 'holiday' to literally set foot and go on the south american continent. I could have traveled home!

Labels: brazil, uk

posted by adree at 05:16 SGT (GMT +08)|