Air travel- a nightmare now

I was travelling from London to Mongolia with a stopover in Moscow for four hours. The usual baggage allowance of 20 kilos was given for the check in bag and another 10 kilo for the cabin bag. But as it always happens when you fly back from a shopping haven like London , you are bound to have excess baggage. Most of my previous night , I had spent weighing my baggage on the bathroom scale, making my son Aneesh stand on it holding the bag. Poor boy he was tired of standing on and off the scale. Instead of spending last few hours of my stay in London with him, I was busy balancing the weighing act of the two bags. All my last minute shopping was peeping and oozing out of the bag.
I reached the Heathrow airport knowing very well I had an excess of 12 kilos in the bags. When "the moment " came to put the bag on the check in counter weighing scale , I was just praying God that they let it go. But the lady at the counter though soft in looks was tough and followed the Aerofloat rules. She even made me weigh my cabin bag which in my 26 years of air travel, no airline had done it. She declared it was 12 kilos excess.I was panicked but Aneesh who came to see me off maintained his cool. Farsightedly he had carried a shoulder bag. So there we sat with our bags open on the floor and trying hard to juggle the weight. We pushed in anything looking and feeling heavy in the bag Aneesh had brought. Left only the clothes in the check in bag and knick knacks in the cabin bag. The weight had shifted into the shoulder bag and it was almost bursting out of the seems. I was sad to leave behind my choicest shopping stuff but Aneesh reassured he would Fedex them to me.
After all that weight juggling and going through the rough security measures including taking off your shoes, jacket, belts, bangles and wallet and putting through the x-ray, I was finally gasping on my window seat inside the aircraft. My mouth was choked with dryness. Oh how I longed for a drink. But by now the seat belt fasten sign was on. The air hostess was ready to do the emergency landing demonstration while the aircraft had taken off. So for the next 30 minutes there was no hope of getting even a glass of water.
While we were flying above the clouds leaving below the beautiful green London landscape , my thoughts were still with my baggage. I had booked it all the way to Mongolia. I was hoping that it should not be left behind in Moscow and reach intact to its final destination.
We reached Moscow in about three and a half hours. From here I had to take another Aerfloat flight to Mongolia. I had full four hours at the Moscow airport. But the experience at the airport was bitter. The Russian staff was rude. During the physical security check the passengers were being examined very roughly. A Japanese lady softly whispered in my ear, "I feel like a prisoner here". She had somewhat echoed my feelings. I had not seen a single polite Russian official. Rather they looked at us suspiciously.
After being released from what seemed a captive zone, I came out to the waiting lounge. I wanted to buy water. But most vendors refused as I did not have roubles. They refused to exchange water for my dollars. Only the big shop was accepting dollars. But at what price- a small bottle of sprite for $4 and a tuna sandwich for $11. Their duty free shops had no buyers . Moscow airport has earned the reputation of being one of the costliest.
Now back to the baggage saga. From Moscow to Mongolia the flight was nine long hours. It became somewhat uncomfortable with a priest from Finland sitting next to me and ready to preach at every given moment. Finally the aircraft landed smoothly in Mongolia. The baggage had reached too. But to my utter dismay and shock the lock had been broken open. Inside there were tell tale signs of being frisked and tampered with. A few things missing too.
The journey from London was over but the baggage saga is not yet finished. It has opened a new chapter. The next paart is to register my anguish over the damaged bag and fight for the rightful compensation from Aerofloat.