Although we were looking forward to returning home, we were sorry to be leaving Urumqi and the exotic Xinjiang Province. We had thoroughly enjoyed our visit.

Sitting back relaxed on our China Southern flight from Urumqi to Shanghai with the engines starting up for our taxi down the runway, the doors of the plane were suddenly opened and in burst a very agitated Anne and Phil, with a heap of Barrie's hand luggage and of course a more relaxed Barrie in tow . Sweating profusely they rushed past us without noticing and flopped exhausted into their seats.

It was an awful story. Apparently they had all arrived at Urumqi airport to find that Barrie had to pay excess baggage for all the luggage he had acquired. He had no money left and for some reason could not use his credit card. Phil and Anne of course came to his rescue and used their credit card to cash some money. The credit card was gobbled up by the automated teller machine and they spent over an hour trying to communicate with the airport officials to get the card unlocked from machine. We were never sure how they managed to resolve their problems but it was obviously very stressful for them and their good friend Barrie was not one bit popular. It was obviously a miracle that they made the flight, and more importantly that they did not miss their two next connecting flights to Shanghai to Sydney and then onto Melbourne.

The last we saw of the trio was at Shanghai airport. Anne and Phil had left a very disgruntled Barrie to look after all their luggage while they went into the Business Lounge to have a well deserved drink - probably many.

We found it amusing but we felt sorry for Phil and Anne. We had encountered a number of people like Barrie on our many travels and we were mightily glad it was not us.

Our return flight from Shanghai to Sydney with China Eastern Airlines was as usual very comfortable. And we had no problems with our connecting flight to our nearest township of Taree on the mid north coast of New South Wales. We were just very grateful that we have a regional flight service - REX Airlines - that operates this very useful service. 

We were pleased to be home after a wonderful and truly memorable trip.