Long-haul flight with a child

I have been thinking of writing this for a while... somehow got delayed. Every time I sit to write, something would come up and I'd not be able to continue. This post has been written over a period of several days...

Traveling with children is always a challenge. If you have a toddler, it is a bigger challenge. If you are traveling by air with your toddler, it becomes a challenging challenge - especially because, you cannot take breaks when you want to. We have flown to India 2 times with our son till now- when he was 4 months old and recently when he was 1 1/2 years old. Last time we traveled by Singapore Airlines, this time it was Cathy Pacific. We liked Singapore Airlines better in both food and service.

We told our pediatrician about our travel during our son's 18 month check-up. She gave us a checklist with all the shots required and the general over the counter medicines that we can carry. We wanted to give him H1N1 vaccine before we left, but it never became available until our travel. She also advised us to keep children's Benadryl with us during the travel, in case our little one got travel sick. She also warned us that, about 2% of kids get hyper-active and asked us to try it in advance. I was kind of sure my son would not eat much of the flight food and so, packed up few chapathis smeared liberally with ghee, 6 pack yobaby yogurt, one sipper cup with milk, lots of dry snacks and pieces of his favourite fruits. We also carried few books and toys (Doodle pro, an ABC toy and a small key chain with LED lights - he likes it) in our hand baggage to entertain him in the flight.

The liquid allowance rule is still in place, but when you travel with kids, you are allowed to carry up to a liter of liquid as long as it fits in a gallon size zip-top bag. The yogurt and milk went into the gallon size bag. Apart from that we had some travel size toiletries and medicines in a quart size zip-top bag. When we boarded the flight, I gave the milk, fruits and yogurt to the flight attendant to be kept in the airplane cooler. We had requested for Indian vegetarian meal for us and Indian vegetarian child meal for the kid. The food was average compared to our previous experiences. The child meal was pathetic and I'm sure no child will like it. It had egg in almost every meal and when we told them that we had asked for a vegetarian meal, their explanation was that, eggs were diary!!! I know eggs are sold in the dairy section in the grocery store, but it is not dairy for sure... For child meal breakfast, they served a sandwich with dry hard ciabatta roll with one huge piece of tofu in the center... They call this kids meal!!! Even an adult would not enjoy this....

The first leg from San Francisco to Hongkong was about 13 hours nonstop (late night flight). This leg was the toughest. Even though our son was not 2 years old yet, we decided to buy a seat for him, as he would not fit into the bassinet they provide. We carried his car seat and fixed it in his flight seat. We could strap him in it when he slept, this way, we were hands free and he was comfortable. The only hassle was carrying the big toddler car seat around in the airports... For us, the trip started with a bad note. My son kicked a passenger's apple juice cup spilling the juice all over him when I was carrying him for a diaper change. The passenger was totally annoyed and unhappy and I felt guilty even though it was an accident. After that, kiddo slept for few hours. When he woke up, he ate some snacks and yogurt. Later he became unhappy about sitting in one place. He wanted to run around and also was a little cranky - not unmanageable though. Finally, after what seemed like a long time, we landed in Hongkong.

We had a 16 hour layover in HongKong. We went out sight seeing for about 5-6 hours (about that, later). Our next leg from Hongkong to Chennai was a 5 1/2 hour flight at about 10 PM local time. The flight was delayed by an hour. All 3 of us were so exhausted that we slept the whole leg. We reached Chennai at around 1.30 AM local time. A long tiring journey came to an end and we were excited to be with our families again :)

An eventful trip to Thirukadaiyur

Thirukadaiyur is a village near Mayavaram in Tamilnadu, India. It is the land of the Amritaghateswarar - Abirami temple. This is the place where Lord Shiva protected Markandeya from Yama (Lord of Death) when he was about to take the boy's life. Hence, this temple is supposed to give long life to couples beyond 60 or 80. A ceremony called Sashtiaptha poorthi is celebrated when the husband reaches 60 and Sadhabishegam when he reaches 80. Read more about the history and leagends of the temple here.

My dad turned 60 this November and we planned for the wedding ceremony in Thirukadaiyur temple. My dad had arranged for conducting the ceremony in the temple and stay at a hotel nearby through his friend Mr. Subramaniam whose native place is Mayavaram. These arrangements need to be done atleast 5-6 months in advance as the temple is quite busy all the time. We were a group of 27 people who travelled from Chennai to Thirukadayur. My dad had arranged a 30 seater bus for the 7 hour travel. We had convinced my grandparents (Mom's mom and dad's parents) to accompany us and give their blessings. All 3 of them are 70+ years old and not in their great healths. My parents were worried and hoped they would be fine with all the travel and stay outside. Mom visited few local temples and prayed for our safe journey.

On the travel day, we started at 7.30 AM from my dad's place and picked up other folks on the way. Unfortunately, my grandma (dad's mom) was not feeling well within an hour into the journey. She was feeling very dizzy, probably because her blood sugar level dropped and was not willing to eat/ drink anything to make her feel better. After about an hour, we somehow made her eat breakfast, but she was not feeling any better. My aunt (Dad's sister) is a doctor herself and was monitoring grandma regularly. We halted in Chidambaram to take her to the hospital. She could not even get down from the bus. My husband, uncle and dad had to literally lift her out from the bus into an auto. They went to Annamalai university hospital to test her blood sugar level, pressure and ECG. Her pressure was not very stable, but everything else was fine. The doctors thought she could be suffering from motion sickness. After a bottle of saline and some medicines, she was discharged.

In the mean-time, we folks who were waiting in the bus were getting worried and anxious. We kept calling the cell phone of the folks in the hospital to know the status. I wondered, how would have such a situation been some 10 -15 years ago, when cell phones were not commonplace. It felt hot inside the bus and we waited outside. Then it started drizzling and we had to get into the bus again. Luckily, Mr. Subramaniam had a relative in Chidambaram. We went to their house to use the restroom. They made tea for all of us, milk for the kids and juice for my grandma. It was very kind of them to help us in need. Finally grandma came back to the bus and we proceeded with our journey. We reached our hotel at Thirukadaiyur at 8.30 PM as opposed to 4.00 PM (per plan). A homam was to be held in the temple that evening. Since we were so late, my parents quickly changed and rushed to the temple. Then the rest of us freshened up and joined my parents in the temple after 9.00 PM. We were the last family to get there. Since we were in a hurry, none of my grandparents came to the temple that night. During the homam, various dried herbs were passed around in small cups and dropped in the flame. The smoke emitted when these herbs burn is supposed to be good for health and cure various diseases.

After the pre-wedding ceremony, we ate dinner at the near-by Krishna mess. We were so late that they had only dosa and onion oothappam, both of which were pretty small and costed Rs. 15 each (pretty expensive for a village mess, I'd say). We went back to our rooms to catch some sleep. We were to assemble in the temple entrance (Gopura vasal) at 5.30 AM, which means we need to get up at 4.00 AM. We got about 4 hours of sleep that night.

Next morning was the wedding day. My grandma was still sick and stayed in the room. Grandpa and the other grandma walked to the temple with lot of difficulty and sat in one place through out the ceremony. We reached the temple, placed fruits, coconut, flowers, garlands and new saree, dhothi (varusai saman) in huge plates and carried them in. The priest then explained the significance of the temple and conducting the wedding ceremony. More pooja was done and then we went out for Go pooja (worshiping cow and its calf). Next we got blessings from the temple elephant. We went back to the temple and another small homam was conducted. Next the ceremony of 24 namaskaras (drop down, pray and get up) - 16 for Lord Shiva and 8 for Goddess Abhirami was done by all of us. What an exercise!!! Then the priest gave each of us a kalash. He gave me and Murali the biggest ones. Man, it was heavy! We walked around the temple with them in hand. Another great exercise!! If I did things like this everyday, I'd lose all my exess weight in no time!!! A man carried a huge umbrella for my parents as we walked around.

The priest asked us to pour the water from the kalash onto my parent's heads. After that my parents changed to new clothes, and the clothes they were wearing before has to be donated. My parents stayed in the temple premisis and we went to eat breakfast in the restaurant of hotel Sathabishegam. We got back to the temple for the mangal sutra ceremony (tying the sacred knot). My parents got blessings from folks older than them, and blessed all of us and gave us our gifts :) Then we got darshan of Lord Amritaghateswarar and Goddess Abhirami. We had lunch at the same place as our breakfast, packed our stuff and started back to Chennai. The return journey went on eventlessly. Most of us slept on our way back as we were very tiered.

I was amazed by the scale of the weddings happening at the temple. On a given day, there can be as many as 100 weddings happening simultaneously!!! The time sharing among the priests, cow, elephant, umbrella man, the musicians (melam and nathaswaram) is done so well that no one is waiting for anyone. I feel that this whole setup can prove to be a good MBA case study.