The Dar airport is kind of like, well, the Kelowna airport, but a littttttttlllllle bit bigger. For any of you whom have ever been to the Kelowna airport you’ll understand that this makes Dar’s airport moderately bigger than the cardboard box a refrigerator is delivered in. Ok, I’m being a little harsh. It was clean, safe(ish), well stocked with trinkets and there were even a few stationary air conditioners which made the sweltering day down right cold. When we got there we picked out two seats directly in front of the air conditioners to thwart any critical sweat overload, in doing so we found out that we must now be at least partially African because within minutes we were gritting our teeth and almost shivering. The worst part is we had been complaining about the heat for so long that we really couldn’t bring ourselves to move out of the line of fire. We were finally back in the ice ages!!
Our flight to Dubai was rather uneventful and neither of us slept because it was only 1700hrs when we left and only a five hour flight. We found ourselves feeling spoiled at only having to sit for that long. Given the flights we’ve been taking lately this was truly easy. We even felt bad for the stewardess’ having to get done everything in such a short amount of time.
You know you’re getting close to Dubai because there are neon lights flashing in the windows of the plane. The place is lit like a Christmas tree year round and all through the night. It really is the mid-east version of Las Vegas. The airport is even more astounding, when you fist walk in you would swear you were at Chinook mall, teeny-boppers and all. The AC is the same, the fake (realish) plants are the same, the stores look the same, the wads of cash look the same and, most importantly, the Starbucks and McDonalds are the same. There are throngs of people everywhere and since it’s a hub for Asia there are even more throngs of people sleeping on any spare piece of floor they can find, provided of course that they aren’t entirely likely to get run over. More interestingly, despite numerous No Smoking signs and Smoking Rooms, you still find people sitting outside the Smoking Room door puffing away. It gives the whole place a strong coffee/cigar smell. (My mom would love it...Just kidding.)
We walked the length of it first to see what we could find. Besides the normal McD’s, Starbucks and Duty Free Shops there were also Men Only and Women Only Mosques, loads of camel trinkets and an Irish Pub which looks remarkably similar to a pub Eric would build. They also have a LOT of gates, we know of 110, 50 of which we walked through (four times) but there is still a whole wing for Emirates Air being built which in our estimation will hold at the very least another 60 of them. This is a VERY BIG AIRPORT. After our quick perusal we headed to McD’s for a bite and kept walking until our flight boarded. It’s nice not to have to be at the gate at the right time. Here everything moves at it’s own pace, with in reason.
The flight to Bangkok was another 5ish hours and quite easy despite the fact Eric and I were sitting across the isle from each other. We both slept for about two hours but Eric had the unfortunate fortune of sitting beside three Lebanese guys who got on SUPER late and proceded to complain about their seats, delay the flight, crawl over Eric and one of them even slept on top of him for a short while. They were a joy.
The Bangkok airport is similar to Dubai in the sense that is it very modern. From the inside I would forgive you for thinking you were at LHR Terminal 4, that is of course if you couldn’t see all the GIANT Thai statues of guys dressed in old school fighting gear. It’s really pretty cool. After customs and grabbing our luggage we headed to the Federal Hotel in Sukhumvit. Sukhumvit is the more luxury western area of Bangkok were a great number of expats hang out. Our room is good and the first thing we did was hit the pool to cool down from the sweltering humidity.
Off to meet a friend from Prince Rupert....
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