curry in a hurry

It is now called Mumbai, but most locals still call it Bombay. I must say that I love India. It is a fascinating place; however, as crew, we don’t really have enough time or the energy to leave the confines of the city areas. On my first five or six trips to Mumbai, I was the definitive tourist there and did everything a tourist would most surely do, from seeing where Gandhi had lived to treating myself to high tea at Taj Mahal Hotel. Later, in 2009, that same magnificent hotel would become a shooting gallery for radical extremists. Luckily none of our crew was there at the time, although the terrorist attack did open our eyes to some of the dangers that lay out there. Most of the countries I fly to are caught in some sort of political or social turmoil: some of them have the usual security issues that can be negotiated with a little common sense, while some countries are just downright dangerous. Such incidents made me realise that we do not live in a perfect world.

Such incidents also made me realise that I had a knack for escaping trouble.

In 2002, I was in Bali only a week before the bombings there. I was in Jakarta in 2004, only a day before a bomb had ripped through the foyer of the nearby Marriott hotel. In 2005, while I had been on my way to London, the tube bombings had occurred in the city. During another one of my trips to Mumbai, in 2006, a series of bombs had gone off on local trains, killing hundreds. This had happened only hours before we had arrived there, and our crew had been instructed by our company’s security to not leave the hotel. I had left Narita only an hour or so before the catastrophic earthquake of 2011. I’ve just narrowly missed riots in Bangkok on two occasions and became stuck there during major flooding. I have also been in other cities badly affected by monsoons, typhoons, cyclones, hurricanes and tornadoes. I saw massive destruction caused by a series of twisters in and around the Dallas area, Texas. Our hotel in Brisbane, Australia, was once inundated by flood waters while I was there, as were hotels in Manila, Bangkok, as well as Mumbai. And I was in New York only days before 9-11; I had then flown back into the city on one of the first flights that had been allowed in.

I rarely leave the hotel room these days when I travel to cities like Mumbai. Apart from the safety issues, there’s another reason for this: I have had horrible gastro-experiences in India.

Before taking this job I could never have imagined the amount of strain my poor bowels would have to endure. Flight attendants talk to each other about things that I am sure no one else would ever discuss with their work colleagues. We freely discuss our toilet habits and about the ill-effects of a hostile vindaloo. I’ve suffered food-related bugs that I didn’t even know existed. The worst of these was giardia – it basically stripped out my insides and made me feel like I wanted to die.

I now carry around my own pharmaceutical dispensary. I have tablets for diarrhoea, and I also have tablets for constipation – I have never needed the latter in India. I’ve made sure that I will never eat food off a Bombay street vendor’s cart ever again, but rather stick to the dining room of my hotel. My decision to stay in the confines of five-star luxury really doesn’t need justifying after all: the hotel has clean kitchens, outstanding food, comfortable beds, a magnificent pool and drinkable coffee. What more do I need?

Ironically, poor countries like India have the grandest hotels. In fact, I have found that the poorer the country, the better its hotels. In Mumbai, the magnificent hotel I usually stay in is surrounded by slums. Every time I order a gin and tonic there, I know the drink costs as much as what it would take to feed a whole family in the slum. For a month.

Well, I can’t cure all the world’s problems, can I? I am just being saucy, of course. Flight attendants are some of the most generous people I know. The involvement by some crew in fund-raising and charity work is outstanding.

One of the better things about travelling and seeing so much is that it gives you perspective, a chance to see the bigger picture. Not everyone who travels opens their eyes wide enough to see that bigger picture, but the opportunities are certainly there. As I lie by the hotel’s pool, contemplating the world, contemplating my life, I can’t help but realise that my period cramps, jetlag and lack of sleep are all inconsequential in the larger order of things.

However, along with the bigger perspective, travelling can also give you a bigger sense of denial.

So, I deny all the trouble and chaos I see around me. And I simply order another gin and tonic.