I used to really look forward to sitting next to interesting people on the plane and having interesting conversations, but of late I wasn’t quite so lucky. Most of the time people just want to sleep, or they just seem boring and the worst, I get seated next to fat, smelly men bulging out of their seats. So what I’ve started to do is either pre-book my seat right at the front where mothers and toddlers usually get seated, or I ask to be seated next to a lady. This time around my travel was much more comfortable because of this. I was next to another female and there was an empty seat between us, which was a bonus.
i always get unlucky seats.
i've had an Indian chemist explain to me over the course of 13 hours how his phd from india helped him, how certain molecules are more interesting than others, how he used to watch cricket some decades ago, but was wondering if manjrekar was still around. and he would just stop talking and look at me until i asked him about molecules again.
i've had one guy insist that i learn the pushto nummerals for six hours and for the life of me, I couldnt get him to stop bothering the hell out of me. Acha to ab bolo "za ve cho pi" (substitute real pushto words please..)
take no chances catwoman. do what i did this time. skip the night sleep a day before the flight and snooze your way across the world.
I have always had good experiances in the plane. Its nice to talk to someone new:) The world is so interesting ...isn't it..
This time flying was a quite a disaster for me while flying back to London from Pak.. ahem I was so sick that I starting vomiting the time the food arrived for everyone, 
Oh it was so embarrasing, as the others were having their meal, I refused mine , I had a terrible sickness feeling in my tummy and then when the smell reached me I literally fulled the vomit bag!!! 
My family was sitting behind me, and I was sitting in the middle of two men, one was a pakistani guy, he was quite understanding and said at the end ‘looks like you didn’t have a pleasent journey’.
I've had great experiences on airlines. I usually wear a dupatta which almost always results in nobody sitting next to me. Woo hoo! Free space for elbows/books/purse. grin
I never have trouble getting my 
on a plane. And it’s always great when u’re seated next to an aimable person. and sometimes not so great when u’re seated next to a smelly illiterate chauffeur from kuwait 
i literally held my breath for the length of that trip!
when i flew to india a few months back, i met a bunch of friendly people on the plane, all of whom were new yorkers too. i was glad for their company when we had to wait for 6 hours in kuwait. and we’ve kept in touch too, now that we’re all back 
khayr, vaapsi mein i was seated to this dude, some software engineer from DC.. he was a nice guy, helped me out quite a bit with my luggage… but i felt uncomfortable coz he was being toooo nice. neway, he kept pressing me for my phone number, and i tactfully changed the subject a few times, but he wudn’t give up.. so i ended up giving him a fake email. has that ever happened to you guys?
lol those are some interesting stories. The last time I came here I had a Punjabi Indian man sitting next to me, who didnt want to pay for his whiskey. It was daytime and only a 2 hour flight and him and the steward began a swearing match, I was so hoping nooone thought I was with him. And he was reaking of alcohol and very talkative!
One time on a short flight I was sat next to a nice lady who in just a brief time had a longlasting impact on me, she said the wisest thing to me, "You know you have matured when you stop blaming your parents and your past for your short-comings".
I remember a freaky experience once. I was sitting next to this person who was in a band, he must have been in his late thirties or maybe older. Anyway, I was wearing a colorful dupatta with western clothing. So I am sitting there and he strikes up a conversation. Then he said the funniest thing to me. He said, "I like your hair, nice hair." Now at this point I was thinking what in the world, my hair is covered. Did he see a wisp of it or take a peek somehow while I was getting in my seat? (You know how dupatta moves around sometimes.) So I said, "what do you mean?" And to my shock and horror he meant the hair on my armsssss!!! I was soooo embarrassed. Later I almost burst out laughing after realizing what just happened (especially since I was wearing long sleeves as usual). It was very difficult conversing with him the rest of the trip, I was feeling terribly shy and embarrassed.
omg it can’t get freakier than that! 
I’ve never traveled alone, and when I do travel my family is seated together, I think I would hate sitting next to a stranger… well I have some exceptions.
After my marriage when i went
back to Holland i sit next to a men.
But i feel so sad coz i have to leave my
hubby in Pakistan and i start to cry when
the plain rise. The men who sit next to
me if i feel okay and if i want medicine.
But i said no thanks.
Last time when i goes to Pakistan i go with my
Hubby :)
none of dat has happned to me, Allah ka shukar hai :)
cuz our family usually gets seats together
I would've thought the dutch had better english than that. Engerland only being a swim away and all.
I got (was forced to) to sit next to this danish-the-menace kid once. Some pakistani aunty had a few too many kids to handle and asked me if I could babysit her 5-yr old, like some sort of barra bhai.
Over the next few hours, chota bhai had introduced and narrated entire autobiographies of each of his entire figurine collection, made 5 trips to the washroom with a proclamation of "kuch ni wa" (kuch nahin hua) everytime - which made me think he'd pishhi in his knickers at any given moment, wailed uncontrollably until I gave him my dessert, kept interrupting my nap and insisted on watching his enactment of some sort of lord of the rings battle scene with his robot and dragonball Z figurines and bombarded me with "ya kya?, woh kya" questions while pointing at any and every thing that moved.
It was almost worth it coz I think I was scoring major points with some chick a couple rows back. But when I "happened-to-pass-by-her-seat-on-my-way-to-the-washroom", chaccha miaan gave a hard, cold stare and twitched his moochain like he was gonna take out his raffle (rifle) any time.
Before disembarking, aunty jee went all shukriya beta jee and the lil' monster gave me a hug and even offered his Gokan toy. I really should've taken it, he would've broken it in the next day or two anyway.. saaalaaa. We left with "wapsi ki flight pe milain gey", and he actually believed it.
Cute kid. Even cuter girl. Not-so-cute dad. Hardly any sleep for the last few days and hordes of sweaty relatives waiting to meet me in the blistering Paistani heat.
Gotta love those trips back to the mothership. :)
^ thats the cutest flight ordeal ive heard hehehe kids are so halarious.. sound like my lil 11 yr old cousin who cant get enuff of Pooh and stickers..
on my flight bangkok/karachi/lahore... i had a 50+ curry with a lump on top of his head wink at me and some other dude blew a kiss!!! silly desis
Awwwwww that's a really cute story, DK.
I recall when I was really little, my brother and I were in seats a little away from our parents, and there was another uncle sitting next to us, who was fairly friendly throughout the flight. I felt totally comfortable around him until the flight attendant came by and asked him if we were his kids and he said yes. After that I was totally freaked out. Now that I think back (and this is how my parents later interpreted when my brother and I told them) he was probably just trying to save us trouble, in case we were travelling alone. But it was still pretty darn creepy.
I've travelled alone once on a flight, all other times some family members have been there.
So that one uneventful time, i was stuck next to a girl who had the flu. I had the aisle seat (thank God!) and every few minutes she kept sneezing and achuuuu-ing along with the rest of the good stuff. I felt bad but I didn't really wanna strike up a conversation where there might have been a chance of her sneezing in my face. So most of the flight my head was turned to the aisle side, and after the flight i developed a major cramp in the neck :-/ I couldn't sleep much either on the flight due to her incessant sneezing.
Oh and not to mention the guy on the other side of the aisle thought that i was checking him out or something! He kept smiling and all i could think was "oh great..." and smile back but after a while that kinda got weird too so i just closed my eyes and tried to sleep.
Diablo, that's the cutest story. I once had a lil girl next to me aswell with huuuuge eyes (that's all I remember) :-) I felt really bad at the end of the flight when we had to part.
PS, Engerland is a bit further away than just a swim :-/
Diablo, That was hilarious.
hmmm interesting travellers... there were two guys from Germany who were planning to backpack through Chile, or one of the Latin American countries. One of them saw my mini Pakistan and Canada flags on my travelpack, and asked where i was from. They were both in their mid 20s, i think, travelling to Latin America for the first time. One of them shaped a balloon into some sort of animal shape (i couldn't for the life of me figure out what the animal was supposed to be, but of course i didn't say that) and gave it to me.
Another interesting traveller was this one gentleman on a PIA flight from Abu Dhabi to Islamabad...again i was travelling alone. He was going back to his village in Kashmir, he said, to visit his parents. i think he worked as a construction labourer in Abu Dhabi, would send remittances back home. He was soooooooooooooooooooo polite, so humble, so gentleman-like in every way Masha'Allah. We had a lovely conversation (ahem yes in Urdu and yes he understood me perfectly :p or at least he was polite enough to pretend to understand me :( ... ). He said i was welcome to visit him and his family anytime at his village where i would be treated like an honored guest. i dunno mood mai aakar kah dia ho ga, but - if he really meant it, i think it was so generous of him Masha'Allah. Who was i but a complete stranger to him...i was really touched by that.
hmm last interesting fellow traveller - this Oriental girl who of course as it turned out spoke fluent Urdu, who offered me an aspirin at the Islamabad airport waiting lounge cuz i had a headache exploding in my head. She was really sweet...we exchanged e-mail addresses. She gave me an aspirin and i bought her a cup of chai cuz she didn't have any money on her. It was fun to talk with her.
Oh, I have so many on-flight stories to share. But I won't put them all here. It will take forever. On a Dallas-Tokyo flight, I was seated next to a Professional Tennis Referee who was the chair umpire for many of Wimbledon finals involoving John McEnroe.
And this Pakistani German guy in his late thirtees who boarded my PIA flight from Frankfurt to Karachi. He literally told me the prices of everything he was wearing. He said that German treat desis like dogs and won't let them enter night clubs but he was the ONLY exception since he knew what to wear and smelled good.
I was in the middle seat. My only other option was a 90 year old Afghan woman who spoke Pushto and was travelling without any passport. She declared the news when we were about to land in Karachi and the air-hostess was handing out those custom forms. I asked her, who brought you to the airport in Frankfurt?. She said, her son. She had no idea a passport was required to enter Pakistan. Needless to say, I helped her get off the plane and all but once she approached the immigration counter, I kind of separated myself from her. As I crossed immigration into baggame claim area, I saw her arguing with the immigration officers. I felt bad but there wasn't much I could do. This was many years ago.
More to come later...
wow cool stuff guys 
:k:
me’s travelled alone a lottttt too… sooooo many stories to share, so many ppl that i came across…its all fast fwding in my brain now… sigh