I had prepared two separate boxes, one for the bike frame, the other for the wheels, and stuffed both full of frying pans, muesli, flip flops, mosquito tent and assorted stuff. They weighed in at 20kg each. I made them out of original, full length bike boxes from Halfords. Big mistake!
I got them to exactly the Air France regulation size; but when we pitched up at the check in desk, lo and behold, Mr Jobsworth himself was there. What was in these boxes? Err, mostly pans and muesli and clothes. Not bikes? No, not at all. Why, then, were they in bike boxes? I explained they were not ‘bike boxes’. per se, but bits of boxes that had once held bikes. The problem was, Mr Jobsworth continued, they had pictures of bikes on them, so the luggage minions would assume they were bikes, and since it took two minions to lift a bike, this added to Air France’s costs, which, he regretted to inform us, we would have to bear. 40 Euros each box.
If, I ventured, I had covered them in non transparent tape, so the bike pictures were blocked out, would they have been okay. Indeed, he said. How about, I suggested, I get them bubble wrapped? That would apparently be okay, too. Wait a moment, I then said. What about the second box? It doesn’t have a picture of a bike on it. No, he riposted, but it does say ‘Halfords‘.
We scurried to the bubble wrap place, where they only had clear polythene. We had our boxes wrapped, so now the bike picture and the ‘Halfords’ motif shone through in gloss rather than matt, and headed back to check in, where we were informed by another Air France stalwart that we would have to pay 40 Euros for each box anyway, as they were non regulation size. I explained that they confirmed with measurement gleaned from Air France themselves. Yes, but they weren’t ’suitcases’. No, I agreed, but they held our entire wardrobe, and could therefore be deemed proper luggage.
Finally, they relented. But we had to take our boxes to a special drop off place, where they would be scanned. My mouth went dry as I considered the possibility of Mr Jobsworth asking the scanners to check my muesli story out. There were four packets of muesli in the boxes; but they were there as padding for the illicit bike.
The boxes proved of interest in Seychelles, too. We were one of the first out of the plane but the last through customs on account of choosing the immigration queue run by a lady on Valium. We strolled through the Nothing to Declare line and were asked what was in our boxes. I admitted to a bike. Asked to open a box, I worked up a nasty sweat ripping off the ludicrous plastic wrapping before exposing the contents. The customs man peered at the rusted frame of the Rudge, sighed and said in a dry fashion.
“One used bikeâ€,
before dipping in and extracting a pair of bright yellow Crocs, a bag of Agar Agar, mud encrusted flip flops and a pot of jam. Thankfully, none of it was deemed worthy of import duty.
He sent us on our way, round the corner to the Air Seychelles desk where we were relieved of 88 Euros each for a one way ticket to Praslin. Iniquitous.
Needless to say, mosquitoes are still as plentiful as ever. So, whereas in England, we were living in one room of our house trying to keep warm, here we‘re living in two tents, trying to keep from being bitten :
