67/ 100 Don’t Eat the Sandwiches

We were finally on the small Spice Jet aeroplane in Varanasi. We were several hours behind schedule but I still couldn’t be more delighted. We had upgraded our seats so we were in the very front row, seats 1A and 1B, with miles of legroom (very important when you’re tall like me) and we were actually moving now.

Because we had upgraded to the best seats in town, amusingly named ‘Spice Max’, we also had a meal as part of the deal. Having spent most of the day in an airport we were absolutely starving hungry and quite excited about what was to come. I was hoping for a level of service at least on par with the Shatabdi Express trains (day 47) where we were fed a wide variety of tasty Indian food until we could eat no more.

The cabin crew came over when we had been airborne for half an hour or so to offer us their wares. Over the extremely loud noise of the plane’s propellers we heard the stewardess offer us a choice of two fizzy drinks, a crustless sandwich with an unidentifiable yellow paste and a pot noodle style rice tub. Not really what I had in mind but hey, I was very hungry, so I went for a cola and took a gamble on the sandwich as it seemed the most substantial.

The kind lady picked up the sandwich, more or less said that it was crap and that she definitely wouldn’t eat it and gave us the rice pot instead with a smile. It wasn’t amazing but it definitely wasn’t the worst thing I’ve eaten on a plane and I really appreciated her honesty.