A local girl's guide to select cities in India

Top 10 observations in transit
[Toronto-London-Dhaka-Calcutta-Darjeeling]
[Air Canada-Biman Bangladesh Airlines-Biman-Indian Airlines]

10. The cockpits of Biman Bangladesh Airlines do not have re-inforced doors or armed marshals. Instead, if you ask nicely enough, they’ll let you watch the entire Himalayan range [incl. Mount Everest] pass you by at daybreak, from the cockpit, while they navigate emergency landings, after every nautical mile.

9. The English lads at Heathrow are cute and chatty, yet have no reason to be but they’ll chat you up regardless. Digressing here, I was broke, after I exchanged American $$ for Pounds. Highway robbery, and the dude at 10 Downing is cranking up the evil laughter watching poor North American passengers in transit pay up to US $20 for a defrosted panini.

8. Average number of family members traveling from London to Dhaka to celebrate Eid [2 Feb]: 9 -- 1 man, the 2 wives in burkha and hijab, and 4-6 kids per head. Sometimes, kids are supplemented by ageing parents.

7. At Heathrow, always watch the arrivals board for flights from Milan, Paris and other such destinations if you want to seriously spot beautiful people in white leather in transit after Labor day, which displays no crumple lines if you’re fashionably European.

6. When they say Dhaka’s international airport has international style washrooms, it means carry toilet paper. If all else fails, pay the cleaner to stand outside the door to scream at men who blindly walk into the women’s loo to take a leak and worse, never mind. Also, their doors dont have locks.

5. Calcutta’s customs’ officials are the most corrupt bunch in the world. You must grease a palm to get a camera through. However, if you are ‘press’, they freeze and let you go, not before all 60 kgs. of your luggage have been dumped out of your baggage and on the floor.

4. To make a connecting flight from Dhaka to Calcutta, all you need to do is throw your ticket at a man behind a counter, above the heads of all other people who don’t believe in queues and voila! A boarding pass, along with ticket is thrown back at you.

3. Cute but stupid boys will always seek you out, including members of the Indian Cricket team [they are like basketball players there…superbly hot to the general public], but watch when they ask you, your idea of ‘love’. And they are co-incidentally plentiful on flights from Calcutta-Darjeeling.

2. Always put cotton in your ears for flights from Calcutta-Darjeeling. Between the constant bumps due to air pressure, which makes you want to whip out your cell phone and say your final goodbyes and drastic atmospheric pressure change, thanks to the proximity of the Himalayas, your ears will bleed. Or atleast one will.

1. Risk dehydration for dirty loos at all airports, airplanes and other such transit facilities. Be drunk on cheap booze and be sleepy but try and avoid missing flights, especially anything that arrives and departs on time [which again, is a rarity once you leave London].