An Airport Triplet

Place: Doha, Qatar
Signage: Arabic and English
Purpose: Passing through

Birkenstocked hippies and Arabs in dishdashahs and shumaggs and British boys in board shorts and women adjusting their headscarves, saris, jeans, children’s diapers in the bathroom and a wife in a burka and does she wonder why her husband can wear jeans and a tee-shirt? East or West? White or brown? Bible or qur’an? Fate, free will, or manifest destiny? Coming or going? Busines or pleasure? Divisions that turn to schisms, oh count the ways. Indians and Arabs and Asians and Africans oh my! Perhaps they would rather I identify them as sunni or CEO or Bahrainian, but my eyes are not trained to to distinguish such subtlies of humanity they way I can spot an American on vacation (and likely guess their state) from a mile away.
So I couldn’t spot a Qatarian from a line-up.
Its clean! Its new! Its in the middle of the desert!
Doha Airport=Muslim country=no alcohol=disgruntled friends. There was, however, an A&W, and root beer had to suffice.

Place: Bangkok, Thailand
Signage: Thai and English
Purpose: Home base

Moving walkways, check, flat screen televisions, check, flight attendendants in modified traditional Asian dress for a pseudo-authentic image, check, entrance to VIP lounge with my Bangkok Air ticket stub (free popcorn!), check, “Long Live the King” posters commerating the bespecled Monarch, check, the international vibe in which everyone kinda fits in an no one really belongs, check, a Boots store, (the British equivalent of Walgreens) check, infinately long lines at passport control, check, suffocating smoking lounges, check, smooth check out of international and check into domestic for the last leg of my journey, check, check.

Then I see it. It hovers high above the check-counters like a mirage. After 11 hours, one stopover, and final 3 hr. layover to go, the frosted glass sliding doors could be the gates of heaven, the cashier could be St Pete. The Sky Lounge. It exudes exculsivity, but in reality it turns out to be an upscale cafeteria. Still, it is the closest thing to Whole Foods I have seen in months. There’s the bakery block, sushi section, traditional thai dishes and western cuisine. Anything your heart desires. I opt for a muffin and a tropical fruit plate. So clean, so efficient, so streamlined. So what?


Place: Ko Samui, Thailand
Signage: Thai and English
Purpose: R&R

The roofs are thatched, the walls are empty space, the luggage carousel is small and dainty. There are no fast food chains, no PA announcements, no endlessly long terminal, no confusion as to where the baggage claim is because there is only one. Skanky men pick up their hired girlfriends, who look classier than their pot-bellied purchasers.

The runways are sandwiched between endless palm trees, like a smooth tarmac band-aid squashing all the hairs beneath it. The tram ride from the runway to the main building is more of a senic drive than a mere transfer of people. It is tropical local first, airport second.
There is none of the how much, how to, what time business to worry about. There are shuttle busses to all of the various tourist destinations around the island for a few bucks. It is a big island, but a small place as far as place go.The hustle and buslte associated with airports is gone. I am struck by this fact: It is easy, laid back, and reminded of why people (i.e. myself) like to get away from it all.