Who is in charge of the Universe?I have a complaint.

The Sous Chef and I wanted to go away somewhere warm with our bicycles. Since the summer is off (due to my studies) it'll have to be in winter that we go away (and I have two weeks off work at Christmas - unpaid, mind).

After much thought and impatient jabbing of fingers on the world map on our kitchen wall (yes, we have a map of the world on our kitchen wall. Doesn't everybody?) we decided on


I admit, it's a long way to go for a curry but we did some research and the southern tip of India is doable by bike. I have been going out of my mind chasing the best fares possible to Chennai (used to be named Madras). If you know of a site that does low cost flights, trust me, I've checked it, rung the number, sent an email.

On top of chasing prices I have also collected a vast store of knowledge regarding the bicycle policy (the taking thereof) of numerous airlines. It ranging from "Free" to "150 Euros each way, with some including and others not including it in your 20Kg baggage allowance. I have spoken to staff at numerous airlines to check their policy.

Yesterday, checking for more flights while researching the cycle policies the 'best offer' that looked the one most likely we'd take DISAPPEARED. The prices went up by about £200 each! This was starting to unravel so I spent most of yesterday getting cross-eyed comparing prices, checking flight/transit times and cycle policies once more and found a BETTER price. WOohoo (so far so good, Person-in-Charge-Of-The-Universe).

I've had airplanes on the brain, so for some light relief I head to Youtube and in the area marked "Recommended for You" the top video is:


footage of a Garuda aircraft crash taken by a survivor.


erm. thanks Youtube. The recommended section usually has items similar to stuff I've watched. That means it generally has salsa, some Indonesian tv programmes, animated short films from the Vancouver Film School and the usual assortment of cute kittens and laughing babies. I'm not in the habit of watching plane crashes, especially not just before going on a long-haul flight.