Getting home from Japan

So, my wife and I spent our honeymoon in Japan. If you haven't been then you should seriously consider doing so - it is a fantastic country. Of course, it is a long flight there, but that's nothing to worry about. Assuming, of course, that there isn't some sort of bastard volcano in bastard Iceland. If there is, then you're largely fucked.

Which is precisely the situation we found ourselves in when we went to the airport to fly back last Sunday.

Of course, most airlines helped in some way. And our one was no exception. They gave us a premium rate number to call to rebook the cancelled flight, and a couple of sleeping bags. And that was it. On ringing the premium rate number, we found that we could get on a waiting list of around 200 people or wait until mid-May to get a guaranteed flight. It became very clear very quickly that our airline was going to be as much use as syphilis - irritating, pointless, and something to get the hell away from.

So we were on our own. We were in, relative to the UK, a very remote part of the world, trapped in the frigging airport. With dwindling cash reserves and nowhere to sleep, backed up by an insurance company that had suddenly become deeply Christian given the talk of the volcano being an "act of God". If we were going to get back anytime before my birthday (May 4th, fact fans) and therefore keep our jobs then we needed to find another airline to get us back. Or at least to get us as far as they could given the ash cloud hovering over Europe.

Which, it turns out, was Istanbul.

So we flew there on Monday, having got extremely costly standby seats. It was good to have travelled two thirds of the way home. The problem, of course, lay in the third of the way home still to go. We couldn't fly, what with Europe still existing in the invisible shadow of the ash cloud. We couldn't get a train, unless we wanted to wait for five days in order to board one. So there was only one option open to us. The bus. Which, the collection of random, lying salesmen told us, would only take 24 hours.

And thus, in the early hours of Tuesday morning, we set off for Germany. We went through Turkey (it was dark, so I have no idea what the country was like, other than noting that the border guard was a wanker), Bulgaria (such a poor country), Romania (beautiful countryside), Hungary (night again, and I'm pretty sick of looking out of a bus window by the time we got to that country), Austria (fuck me, when is this coach ride ever going to end?) and finally Germany (oh Jesus, oh please Jesus, let me get off this fucking bus). And then, 48 hours after we set off (and having endured a failed attempt by Danish tourists to turn the bus into their own personal taxi), we arrived in Dusseldorf. At 2am. Fortunately, we found a hotel very easily, and managed to get 2 hours sleep. And wash. I don't know whether anyone reading this has ever spent 48 hours on a bus, but by the time you get to your destination, you really need to wash.

The next morning we left Germany on another bus (the trains were still full) and passed into Belgium. We reached the North coast, where an overnight ferry took us to Hull. Actually, the ferry was quite pleasant - if only because there was food, sleep, and the chance to relax for the first time in days. From Hull, it was just a short train journey - well, three hours, but that's nothing after having been on the road for about six days - home.

The flight home was meant to last for 12 hours. It took us six days - twelve times that amount of time - to actually get home.

There are some people who tell us that we were part of history, or that we had an adventure or some sort of extended holiday. They are all right in some ways, but they miss the most important point. Namely that spending six days and a fuck load of cash getting home just isn't fun, no matter how people try to spin it. We weren't alone in the massive inconvenience and stress caused by this volcano, but that doesn't make the long journey home any easier to stomach.