Maybe it was the fact I was feeling a little nauseous, or maybe it was the abrupt change from the smooth ride and more ominous skies, but I got the unnerving impression the the plane was coming in too fast as I caught glimpses of the scenery below from the window 3 seats away. Panic was trying to force its way through my tiredness and I fought hard against the urge to say something, not wishing to subject anyone else to the feelings that I was trying hard to suppress. Besides, no matter what had happened at that point in, we were all just along for the ride now anyway, so no point causing any worry to anyone else now.
The initial touch down was bumpy and fast and the engines roared in such a way as to momentarily suggest that we would soon be airborne again, but the plane stayed planted firmly enough and was rapidly brought back down in speed. As the plane slowed down along the runway, the lack of the sound of belts unclipping of meant that I wasn't the only one who had suffered the jitters during the approach to Taiwan. As the plane stopped and belt lights extinguished, the metallic clunking commenced and the over head luggage retrieval scramble began in earnest. I grabbed mine, stood patiently in the queue for a minute or 2 until the line started to move, carrying me down the aisle, past "see you again" staff and off of the plane to another land.
At Taipei airport, we stopped briefly to fill in the requisite arrival forms before joining what was initially just 3 lengthy slow moving immigration lines. Over the next hour new slow moving lanes were opened as old ones that had been starting to move too quickly were shut, an interesting take on line management seemingly designed to just frustrate the waiters as much as possible. When I was 2 people back from the last of 2 open immigration desks, I was ordered across to yet another queue as the one in front closed meaning that out of an entire plane of people, somehow I had managed to be the last person to get through a slow, timely and unnecessary frustrating process. It's exactly the sort of thing you don't need to happen when you're lacking sleep, feeling rough and yet to have sourced your first coffee fix of the bourgeoning day. Well, that and not being able to access any money from your account at the ATM, meaning that coffee feels a million miles further away than it did 2 minutes before.
HSBC had pulled this stunt* before of course, in Vietnam my cards had been stopped due to a transaction of about 4 pound which they deemed suspicious (it wasn't). This time i had ensured that all the travel information was up to date on their internet banking page but as the first "transaction cancelled" message came out the ATM, I was 90% sure what was going on again. When a 2nd ATM from a different bank gave me the same message I was up to 99% and when on the 3rd interaction I couldn't even check my current account balance, HSBC skullduggery was all but confirmed again. The difference here over Vietnam was that this time I had a travel buddy with me, so I wasn't completely paddle less, but still, in different circumstances I would have been in a new country, with no money, no phone card and even further increased blood pressure. As it was my blood pressure this time had probably only doubled up briefly before I reasoned it back down to an "elevated" state, allowing me to then come up with a course of action that only an idiot with a broken foot could comprehend. We caught a taxi into Taipei to drop off our luggage at the hotel so I could execute my plan, a trip of around 20 minutes at a cost of just over $1000.
Locating the nearest branch of the Worlds Local Bank about a half hour walk away, we reached the front desk looking bedraggled and worn out. "Do you speak english?" I enquired with the young girls behind the counter, one of whom then rather nervously replied "A little". But a little was all she needed. Soon she had taken me around the corner and I was on the phone to HSBC services back in the UK and everything was sorted as far as the damned cash flow was concerned. The people on the phone I dealt with were all polite and helpful, questioning that my last transaction was for a small amount with the airline I had booked with and reasoning with me that there had been a lot of fraud in Asia at the moment, hence my card had been blocked for this reason.
I didn't bite.
I didn't push as to the potential problems that just stopping a card almost indiscriminately could cause someone travelling into foreign countries or enquire why as why they couldn't notify me by email or leave me a message on my internet banking page informing me that a hold had been placed on my card. I really didn't need to get worked up anymore for no reason.
I just waited the 2 minutes I was told to wait for my card to be ready before calmly pulling $10,000 from the branch ATM, thanking the staff there and heading into Taiwan in search of a worlds local cafe.
Coffee had rarely been so needed.
*clean version.
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