Headed to Cathay!

Finally we are headed to Beijing to meet my sister and brother in law.

It had been chaotic in the last few days - stress at work, long hours, frequent travel out of Mumbai and what not.

But thanks to our legendary skill of planning, we had our lists ready. The suitcases came out of the loft last week and we did a little packing every day. The packing process culminated today morning at 6 AM. After that we heaved a sigh of relief, as we headed for breakfast.

To plainly put it, we are travelling loaded, loaded with spices - all kinds that are used in Indian cuisine for Neelima's larder for the next couple of months till she visits India next.

Also going along with us is a box of the very precious Mysore Pak, that I got from Coimbatore earlier and a prized pack of aloo parathas that our cook made this morning on the precise instructions that Neeti had given her this morning.

We are flying Cathay Pacific to Hong Kong and onward to Beijing after a two hour halt. We'll be flying an Airbus A330 on the first leg and a Boeing 747-400 thereafter.

And that reminds me that there is a joke that says "Kitthay Pacific" is the international airline of Punjab while the domestic airline is "Itthay Pacific".

Perhaps the one who made this joke didn't realise that Cathay was a name for China (originally, in the middle ages and during Marco Polo's times, Catai was the name applied by Central and Western Asians and Europeans to northern China. Catai was later anglicized to Cathay). And now we must head towards the boarding gate after a lousy meal at the Clipper Lounge!

Goodbye Mumbai!