Flying out of Madrid, I was heading to Sri Lanka for a couple of weeks, to meet up with friends from previous travels. Due to the very reasonable flight times (leave at 3pm from Madrid, have a 2 hours stopover, and arrive in Colombo at 9am, for a good price, I had booked with Saudia Airlines. By most accounts, it was a reasonable airline, owned by the Saudi Arabia government. The stopover, however, occured in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. This international airport had less than stellar reviews. Seriously, check them out. They’re actually so bad it’s kind of funny. But I only had 2 hours, so what the hell. How bad could an INTERNATIONAL airport be?

The flight from Madrid to Jeddah was pleasant enough, with an empty seat beside me, and some of the best airline food I’ve ever had. There were a couple of reminders we were heading into Saudi Arabia though. The first was the passenger announcements were reminders that we had hit the time of day for prayer. The second was more subtle, but there were a couple of times during the movie I watched that images were blurred out so they were no longer offensive.

Disembarking, I headed into the transit area, through the duty free shop. Upon exiting, I ran into a mass of people, all crammed into one waiting room for the dozen or so flights leaving. It was so crammed people were sitting on the floor. I decided to brave the washrooms (the reviews were particularly scathing of the facilities). As I entered, there was a cleaning woman pushing a tidal wave of water toward the exit, so I dodged out of the way. The floor was still soaking of course. I didn’t stick around long enough to determine the cause of this, but I assume it was the leaking toilets/squat toilets. Luckily, I had my hiking boots on, so I hiked up my pants and got out of their as soon as possible.

As I had hoarded a couple of sandwiches from the lounge in Madrid, I didn’t have to worry about braving the crowds at Tim Horton’s. Yup, there was a Tim Horton’s among the chaos (actually, that’s pretty fitting). I looked around looking for somewhere to sit that wasn’t on the floor, and saw one guy in a row of 4 chairs that was placed behind some not being used security conveyor belts. Pretty sure they were not supposed to be used, as when I got up 2 hours later to board the plane, I had to hop over a rope that got placed there at some point after I sat down.

Needless to say, I was pretty happy to get on the plane, and even happier when I realized I had the whole row to myself. I have never seen a plane so empty. I’m not sure if this is because people are still avoiding Sri Lanka after the recent scare, or because they’re avoiding the bathrooms at Jeddah airport, but that was one empty plane. I stretched out across the streets and curled up.

The bad news about this flight was it took off an hour late, apparently due to baggage issues. Which is ironic because when we arrived at Colombo airport an hour late, I breezed through security (literally no one else in line), only to wait an hour for my bag, which never came. I got in a very slow line with about 10 others that had the same issue. Besides our lost luggage, I bonded with the women in my line over the terrible Jeddah airport. One of them said she called the supervisor over to demand the bathroom was cleaned, while the other said she couldn’t do it and waited for the plane. Being from Sri Lanka, they appreciated when I compared it to that of one in an Indian train station.

After 30 minutes, I was told that they didn’t know where my bag was, but they would deliver it when it arrived. I was given a number to call and sent on my way, 2.5 hours after landing. I found the express bus to the bus station, switched to a bus to the south, had dinner at 6:30pm when I arrived in Weligama, bought a toothbrush, and took another 10 minute bus to my guesthouse in Midigama.

The next day I called the luggage service. They had still not tracked down my bag. I called Saudia Airlines to ask about compensation, as I had nothing with me, including flip flops, and was told to call Jeddah airport. Jeddah said they were in communication with Madrid and Colombo, and to fill out a luggage claim form, at which point someone would call me within 14 days to discuss compensation. 14 days. I really just wanted to know when my bag would come, whether it was worth it to buy new clothes, and how much to spend on these clothes, depending on whether I would be compensated or not. They kept saying they would call when the bag arrived in Colombo, but I was like “can’t you call when you know where the bag is, and when it will be enroute?”.

I finally gave in and headed into Weligama to buy some very cheap flip flops. I realized I could buy some things and claim them through my credit card, but to do that would mean going into a bigger town with more options, and more importantly, receipts. I decided to give it another day. After 48 hours of no bag, I woke up to the guesthouse owner telling me they had called, and the bag would arrive within 48 hours. Phew. 

With no clothes, no sunscreen, no bathing suit, as you can imagine I didn’t have much to do. I went for long walks and waved to the kids and said hello to everyone, as I was literally the only tourist in town for the off season. I read a lot on the roof of the guesthouse and watched the waves. I had long breakfasts. It wasn’t too bad really. Finally, when I came back from my 3pm walk, the guesthouse owner had an update: the bag would be arriving around 8 or 9pm! Yay!

Around 11:30pm, my bag showed up! The airline also gave me $75 CAD in Sri Lankan rupees, which was pretty funny, as I signed my life away for my bag and cash.