Hey Barg, Why didn't you stay on the flight, to get London?? I...

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Margaret63

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18/08/19

11:30

Post #: 40028297
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Originally posted by Barg ↑

I remember my last in-flight cheroot like I remember my last taste of pie. Twoz back in the February winter of 2002. I'd boarded a Pakistan Airline flight out of Islamabad after a splendid few months dodging Taliban fighters and hill bandits on a failed humanitarian mission through the mountain passes en-route to Kabul and was looking forward to a well earned rest in good old Oz. The plane had just started to taxi down the runway when the man sitting next to me asked if I was happy to be returning to London. I raised an eyebrow and informed him that I was going to Bangkok and then on to Australia. "Not on this plane, Sahib," he responded. "This is a direct flight to London UK."

A drama ensued. Panicked Stewardess, panicked pilot. Plane already gathering speed for take-off was aborted. Twenty armed military escorted me back to the terminal where I was put under armed guard where we had a jolly good laugh over tea and gwarla while I explained in my broken Pashtu that it was an honest mistake and I was not a terrorist. Keep in mind that the airport had been bombed by insurgents the previous day, the Twin Towers attack was a recent event and I had just returned from the Pak/Afghan frontier. It also helped that the military were mostly Pashtuns from tribal areas where I was well acquainted with their khans, so I was afforded every hospitality.

Eventually, I was escorted to my correct flight, and feeling a little jaded after the experience, reached for my tobacco, forgetting I had shared my last pinch with the army boys. I ask the stewardess if they had any smokes for sale, but there was none to be had. A call was put out over the intercom in Urdu requesting the passengers donate cigarettes to the lone feringhi and I was soon inundated with a weeks supply of Camel cheroots. Very accommodating chaps the Pak's.

So it was that I smoked my last in-flight cigarettes in the year of 2002 as we passed over the Roof of the World and the Gobi desert. And the world was never the same again.

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Hey Barg,

Why didn't you stay on the flight, to get London??

I thought you'd be happy to get the hell out of there.

Or would it have caused trouble for you in the long run?

It sounds like you were in the Army?

Your right the world will never be the same again
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