Time is funny thing. We're supposed to have 5 senses, the well known sight, touch, taste, hearing and smell. Maybe other spooky ones, and there's kinaesthesia and so on I guess. But how does your body know that time is going funny?
9:45am my plane taxied out onto the tarmac at Heathrow - to join a queue of about 8 other planes. 10:10am it took off.
As we went forward around the globe towards the dateline, it was almost as if I could feel the drag of time. Or maybe it was the cooked breakfast.
Then days and hours all slipped together, and I arrived in Dubai. I did the shuffle, a popular local dance where you get off the plane, exchange your boarding pass with a smartly dressed official for a plastic token, go round in a big circle, exchange back and then (eventually) boarded the plane again.
The mecca marker on screen circled around 180 degrees as the plane flew through the middle east, respectfully skirting Iraq, and headed toward Brunei. I watched too much Jackie Chan. Tried to sleep, and possibly succeeded a few times.
The London-Dubai leg was 6hrs, plus taxi-ing and dancing; and the Dubai-Brunei was more at 8hrs. But it felt interminable.
Eventually I landed, glided down the jetway in a haze of sleep deprivation and collapsed on a row of seats in the transit lounge.
I decided - if that's a good word for my thought processes at that point - not to venture out in Brunei.
I'd seen the toilets here - you stand either side of a porcelain trough, and when proceedings are concluded there's a hose you're supposed to use to clean yourself with. The floor was horrid enough that I vowed to disinfect my footwear on arrival home.
Eventually it was time to head for Brisbane, just a 6 hour flight away now.
More Jackie Chan. Another breakfast.
Then finally home. Yayy!