Getting to the Jet Plane

Backing up a little between my posts from Australia and my posts from Sri Lanka...

I spent four days in Bangkok for yet another round of goodbyes to good friends. I was already tired when I was walking the streets of Sydney. I often had to stop and rest, even nap in parks, while exploring. By the time I left Bangkok I was nearing exhaustion, and the great parties we had over the weekend only contributed (though how could anyone possibly resist?)

I said my last goodbye on the street at the end of the alley outside the hotel. Before I could think too much about who I had left behind, the taxi had whisked me around the corner out of sight and into a sludge of traffick.

We inched forward and then ground to a halt. Cars filled in the gaps around us. We were mired. I tried to relax and practice good Buddhist thinking, abandoning myself to the moment. "What will be, will be," I todl myself, resisting the strong urge to swear. I had already left a little later than I should have. I needed all my minutes.

Minutes kept ticking by. I watched them on the meter. Still, we didn't move.

It took up 45minutes just to travel one kilometre. My thoughts were now entirely diverted from sentimental goodbyes, and fixated on the time. Would i make it to the airport?

One of the problems, you see, is that Bangkok just opened a new airport. Actually I flew into it from Syndey on the first day that it opened. The old airport was an old, ugly, place where it often took two hours to get from your plane to the outside world and which was voted the worst place for a layover of all the international airports. The new airport is this monstrously huge cavern of concrete and blue light. Only that morning I had read in the Bangkok Post an article begging people to stay away from the airport. So many Thai people were driving out to see it that there were serious traffick jams. People were parking on curbs to eat picnics and admire the view. The article quoted many people who expressed their pride in such a large, modern, international building. One man said he would now save up so that his family could fly on a plane and use the airport.

Not everyone is so happy however. Imagine that you are the owner of an "airport hotel" and the airport is no longer there. Now you just own a hotel in the middle of nowhere. Taxi drivers are happy to get huge fares to the very distant airport. In addition, there is a surcharge on all taxis leaving the airport. For the rest of us, there aren't even any public transportation options. And the airport is a long long way away.

And I wasn't even one kilometre closer to it. Buddhist mentality gone, I started to swear. Traffick began to inch. "This is good!" said my driver with a cheery smile. "Slow is good. Stop is bad."

I tried to smile back but all I could think was, "Slow is not good if I miss my plane."

It was agony. We got through the snarl and I started to relax, only to be caught in another jam, just minutes down the road. I tried to find solace in the bumper to bumper frozen pack of cars in the opposite lane which went on for over 5 kilometres but it didn't help me travel any faster.

When traffick opened up for good, we were still miles from our destination. The last twenty minutes (thank god there were no picnicers blocking traffick at that hour) we travelled at high speed down newly build wide paved roads. I could see the airport but it still took ages to get there.

The taxi dropped me at the terminal at 8:15. My flight was for 9:00. If there was no delay in the flight, I thought, I will have already missed it.

"Is this the place?" I asked. "I don't see the Sri Lankan Airways sign."

"Yes, yes," said my driver, kicking me out. Quite likely he was tired of my swearing.

I grabbed a trolley and raced inside, looking up my flight on the screens. No delay but the check in counter, located in area "R" was still open. I looked around the huge concrete warehouse of international departures. I was in area "L."

"Well," I thought, "there may still be a chance." So, I grabbed the trolley and began my wild race through the crowded hall. Though I couldn't see myself, in my mind, it was a thing of beauty. I dodged and weaved through hoardes of milling people, skidding to sudden halts, accelerating rapidly where possible, trying to convey this desperate sense of speed to those in front of me.

I was breathless when I reached section "R." I turned the corner to the airline counters, expecting to see the impatient faces of clerks checking in those last irresponsable stragglers such as myself with warnings of, "If you don't hurry you won't clear security in time."

Instead, my jaw dropped. There were three counters still open for the flight and they were all packed with people: a group of about ten men to be precise, all with the hugest amount of luggage I have ever seen. Large parcels wrapped in purple plastic were piled on carts filling the space in front of the counter. I got dutifully in line, my fear now very real. It was 8:30. The flight should take off in 30 minutes. I still had airport tax to pay, immigration to clear and security to pass.

After a few tense minutes, I approached a free counter person with what I expect was the most desperate of expressions on my face. "Is it still possible to make the flight?" I asked.

He took care of me personally and before long, I had rid myself of my bags and was darting towards the airport tax station with my boarding pass in hand. They opened a new immigration counter just as I arrived and I breezed through in minutes. It was silly for me to have worried about security, in Bangkok, it has always been a bit of a joke. At the gate, I went through a metal detector, but there was certainly none of the hysteria surrounding liquids or nail sissors or anything like that.

Never the less, I sat down in my seat and checked my watch. It was just 9:00. I had made it.