By Uditha Devapriya Fewer things are more impossible than a 45-minute layover at Doha International Airport. Disembarking takes a good 15 minutes, while the gates close 20 minutes before the next departure. When you do the math, you realise you need to have exceptionally strong, sturdy legs to get to your next terminal.
And that’s without the burden of bulky bags and the fear of wondering what will happen if you miss your flight and you have to wait a couple of hours or even a day to go back home. In my case, home lay around 3,000 miles away. Not as far as San Francisco is to Doha – a gruelling 14 plus hour flight that can exhaust anyone – but far enough to make you want to go there quicker.
I had not been homesick in the US – there had been enough and more programs and meetings, friends to meet and places to visit, that had kept me busy – but as I sat in San Francisco, I had felt the vaguest stirrings of wanting to go back, kick off my shoes, and just collapse on my bed. As it turned out, I did not miss my flight. My baggage did, though – in Colombo I had to wait two and a half hours to see them in the next flight from Doha.
Yet as I found myself being rushed to the plane by one official after another – at one point I lost all sanity and almost collapsed – I couldn’t resist but laugh and cry. It’s difficult to explain homesickness to someone for whom travel has become a way of life, like many of my colleagues. How do Americans view travel? According to Pe.