Weather conditions have a strange relationship of love and jealousy with me, yet I try to keep a positive attitude towards them. Through most of my trip to the states, temperatures remained at minus. On my wedding day a strong wind arrived uninvited, and a flood stalked me on my honeymoon. I have an eloped relationship with rain, but thunder keeps hunting the bounty. Golf, travel and shades strongly resent my love affair with fog, yet I love to live in mist — both physically and in my thoughts. Clouds hide the mighty and fog provides privacy. While wind carries the dust yet, it also moves the pollen. Dew cleans the petals and storms fill the lakes. Cool breezes soothe the deserts and sunshine brings forth the light.
Today my beloved fog beckoned to me in another way. On my way back from New York, I was taking a connecting flight from Istanbul to Lahore. This flight got delayed seven-and-a-half hours because of fog in Lahore. The situation reminded me of a quote from Rumi:
“Beyond fog lies clarity.”
I would amend that a little, to
“Beyond fog lies Lahore.”
Once one finds oneself surrounded by fog, the only way to see through it is through faith.
As narrated by Corrie ten Boom
“Faith is like a radar that sees through the fog.”
Travel itself is a great teacher. This time, it sort of introduced us to how our offspring would be traveling to other planets. Because of a long delay before our connecting flight, we ended up checking into an airport hotel called “Yotel” at Istanbul. Its small rooms are designed like a spaceship cabin. We get to experience the feeling of being in a cabin of a future spaceship. A marvelous experience. The design is so practical and the way they've utilized space is out of this world. As there are no windows, they a bulb had been positioned behind a plastic sheet to give a feeling of sunshine outside. How children of cave dwellers educated themselves in living standards over the millenniums amazes me sometimes. And their enhanced capacity to travel fast and far adds to that amazement even more.
The cabin has an attached bath, TV, fridge, Wi-Fi, Comcast, folding queen bed and all we needed, yet it was still so small. Fog did disturb my schedule, but on the other hand it gave us a taste of space travel(!) and turned an ordinary flight into an imaginary time travel. I am still an hour away from Lahore. Counting on a smooth landing, I am hoping the fog will soon dissipate since a seven-and-a-half hour delay is no joke. I am so very excited to resume golf tomorrow. To have a great day with friends. There is no place better than Lahore and there are no better caddies elsewhere except in Thailand. 😀
Credits
Yotel
By
Ahsan Jamil
Golfer, Blogger, Entrepreneur, Author, Poet, Wanderer, photographer, Rebel.
Email: Golfaij@gmail.com
Website: Golfaij.com
YouTube: Morning with Golf
Positive attitude always keeps one going. However, in the Covid environment, one needs to remain negative (instead of positive)…. Yotel at Istanbul airport is worth checking out….