Ceylon

 Oh My!!!! That was a tad traumatic.....But

We are finally here in Ceylon or Sri Lanka as it is now known.

Three days ago when sat at Crispy HQ I received an alert on the phone from the Emirates airline inviting us to " check in " for the flights to Sri Lanka. It's standard practice as most long haul airlines only allow the check in 48 hours prior to the scheduled flight time.  Obediently I opened the documentation and set to filling in the required information. We have done it hundreds of times. It's a simple procedure or should be.

My check in took less than 30 seconds and I started dear old Crispys. To my complete horror and disbelief I noticed that the surname was spelt incorrectly. A single wrong letter. S instead of D. I have a system for booking flights. It's a system honed over many years. It's never failed us. Even when some of our trips have included 6 or 7 flights within a relatively short period.  I print off all the documentation then scan and check it over several weeks for potential errors. Its almost obsessive behaviour and Crispy thinks im mad but works well. 

This time I hadn't. I put faith in my initial booking and hadn't even looked at it for over six months. Airlines are very good at rectifying any small errors if given enough time but I now had less than 48 hours to change and correct the name on Crispys ticket. A wrong name is not by the way a small error. It's huge and without rectifying we were not going to fly anywhere. Hence...

The past two days and nights have been a constant barrage of emails and telephone calls between myself, the booking agent and every possible department within the corporate giant that is Emirates. At every turn  being told that the name change is not possible due to the narrow time window. Eventually after becoming on first name terms with over 100 people the problem seemed to be sorted but we still didnt have the actual confirmation. This would only be possible once we got to the airport and physically reported to check in. It was nerve racking but we steeled ourselves and made our way to the airport not really knowing if we were flying or not. I had prepared myself that in the worst case scenario we would have to purchase the seats again. This at the last minute would cost over £3000 just for Crispy but there would be no other option.

As it turned out at the very last moments the God's of the Air came true and the change went through.  I have never felt so relieved. I vowed there and then that this would never happen again. I had not slept for over 48 hours..... 

The only small problem was that because the original booking was amended it was unlikely that we would be sat together on either flight.  Again due to some crazy coincidences and impossible situations we were able to sit together the entire journey.

I think St James is definitely looking after us because we went to see him and give him a cuddle in Santiago. Who knows but we were very lucky.... lesson learned.

Both flights Manchester to Dubai and Dubai to Colombo happened without any complication and we are now here in Colombo, Sri Lanka on what promises to be an amazing adventure. I have lots of "interesting" things planned for our time here and Crispy is excited. 

We are refreshed and showered after a few hours in bed so are going to get a few cheeky drinks to celebrate. Thank you St James if it was you that pulled us out of the Shite.

Bare and Crispy signing off Negombo, Sri Lanka.