Scampy exhumes his writing career with Swampy redux
I dug this up from four years ago and I cringed, gagged and squirmed and was amazed the Phuket Gazzette even ran it, so I didn't have the guts to submit it to the editor of this expat rag in Tokyo as an example of my work, so I removed all the crap and the childish nonsense and was left with only half a paragraph, so in the end I re-wrote the whole thing which I shall share with you now.
*ahem*
The ice crystals surrounding the little hole at the bottom of the inner window pane would suggest we are at maximum altitude and the flight map says we're somewhere over Tehran, en route to Bangkok.
Thus far it's been a pleasant flight, if not a little boring, but then drama is the last thing you want at 45,000 feet so I'm grateful that it's been dull just as I am grateful not to be sat in the middle row between the fat bloke and the young mother who's baby's screams have at last been plugged by her bosom. Me? I’m nestled in 36K with my shoes kicked off, adjacent to the right wing which is holding us majestically over an impressive mattress of seemingly endless cloud.
I’ve been in the air about 4 hours, breathing the musty air and recycled farts following a satisfying lunch, which has left my tray looking like a landfill site. The passenger in front of me has fully reclined his seat, which means mine has to be fully reclined also to avoid being physically pinned to it by my tray, resulting in a domino effect that has rippled down the cabin, ending with the unfortunate passenger at the rear who's sat against the toilet wall. Movement is very limited and I can just about loosen my seatbelt to ease the digestion process. The two passengers to my left have fallen asleep, so should I need to use the bathroom anytime soon it's going to take the escapology skills of David Copperfield to get there.
Waiting for the one of the stewardesses to remove this mountain of paper and plastic hovering above my lap is, for me, a huge exercise in patience and I won’t be able to relax until it's out of site. Have you ever noticed what a gross overuse of limited resources flying is? A tomato juice alone is presented with a packet of little biscuits plus a sachet of salt and a sachet of pepper, a little napkin and then a plastic cup and a plastic stirrer, and all topped off with a plastic smile from the stewardess. Then there's the packaging that everything from the socks to the headphones come in and those cups of water with the peel off lid which are never enough to quench your thirst because they contain less liquid than is needed to change a contact lens. The airline are simply not taking care of my environment.
These are minor annoyances, I'm not here to lament the overuse of plastic like some tree hugger or moan about the fact there's no sound coming out of the left headphone speaker and that I have to keep moving the wire to get Futurama in stereo, my subject today is this new airport that everyone's been talking about.
'Suwannapoom' (as it's pronounced) has been riddled with setbacks since it's conception in the early 1960's. It is spelled 'Suvarnabhumi', though you don't pronounce the 'i' at the end, or the second 'r', or the 'b' for that matter or even the 'h'. Three days ago it officially opened, taking over all international flights from Don Muang, and has so far has received less than favorable feedback - so I'm already skeptical. The project has been plagued with delays, corruption issues and shoddy construction. It's been reported that it doesn't have enough toilets, the clocks don't work, and the runway has cracks in it - the latter not being much of a surprise having read that the entire site was built on an enormous cobra swamp 25k from the city centre.
Other issues have included huge budget overruns, window cleaning headaches, baggage carousel breakdown, departure boards displaying the wrong information, and opening delays due to sightings of ghosts by superstitious construction workers insisting that 99 Buddhist monks drop by and say prayers to scare the evil spirits away.
Despite all this, Thailand can finally display it's maturity as a nation and boast it’s modernity and financial advancement on the world stage with an (almost) fully operational international airport that can stand proudly alongside it's majestic contemporary’s in Singapore and Hong Kong. Don Muang simply wasn't up to that task. It'd be like displaying a second hand Nokia 2110 next to an iPhone and a Blackberry, so to be fair Thailand had earned itself a new airport, however, it's hard for me not to be somewhat biased being that I was rather fond of Don Muang. The memories of my debut arrival and those that followed are as warm as the blast of air that would hit my face upon exiting the building. The carpet, the illuminated yellow signage, the beige paint, the retro atmosphere and the simplicity - but above all, the feeling of arriving in Thailand.
Finally the litter laden tray is removed by a member of the cabin crew, and so safe in the knowledge that no one will be disturbing me or asking me to do anything for a while, I drift into a doze with my nostalgic recollections which makes the next few hours pass effortlessly.
Several air miles later I’m semi lucid. Through my eyelashes I can see the flight crew asking everybody to put their seats up so I treat myself to a big stretch while I still have the chance, trying not to emit any sound as I do so.
The pilot announces our descent, tells us the weather is nice and the wind is good. There’s that whoosh and clunk as the flaps extend and the landing gear activates and then, out of the window I catch my first glimpse of what looks like some kind of docking station from a recent Star Wars movie, a structure resembling a neatly arranged row of identical grey tents. It reminds me of a cross between some kind of alien plant nursery, or a double T-shaped multiplicity of the main stage at Glastonbury. We have landed at Suvarnabhumi International Airport.
Once inside the thing, it's not as impressive inside as it wants to be, not without a good SLR and a fisheye lens anyway. There's little in the way of decor to suggest I have arrived in the kingdom of Siam. The place is void of any character, spacially sterile and steeled without soul. Sure it's big, but it seems it's out to impress with size over substance and little else. Actually, it would make a better venue for an exhibition of colossal art nouveau sculptures being that it's ambiance is more aircraft hangar than airport.
More soberingly, it’s blatant confirmation that Thailand has embraced capitalism and materialism with open legs, seemingly without hesitation and at any expense to traditional élan. Minimalism has become modern opulence, yet size still matters and the overall impression is that Suvarnaphumi is trying too hard to be fashionable, presenting itself to the world with the emotionlessness and indifference of a wannabe snob, yet with the grace and order of a whoopee cushion.
It's sad that this is the uniform standard these days, and that the world coming closer together brings with it more of this stark conformity and less spirit. Vast areas of squared glass frontage held together with cables and X shaped stainless steel brackets is nothing we haven't seen before, and having areas of naked concrete ceiling with exposed air conditioning pipes looks as lazy as it does pretentious and crappy and characterless.
Maybe I'm being a tad unfair here, prejudiced by my own sentimental walk down memory gate. So let’s have a look at the plus points, of which there are some. Getting through immigration and customs was a breeze and shortly afterwards I spotted my tangerine suitcase as I approached the carousel, getting there just in time to haul it off before it did another lap.
The vastness of the floor area has been compensated by the installation of lengthy travelators, you know, those moving walkways that resemble a flattened escalator and give allow you the pleasant sensation of overtaking people who are walking faster than you are. It is also worth noting that German architect Helmut Jahn has made creative yet modest use of UV lighting in the roof panels, and that the in house FamilyMart has a nice teak and aluminium fascia rather than the usual cheap, uniform plastic frontage we’re used to here in the land of smiles.
Yes the toilets are a bit lame, I've seen bigger and better bogs in Burger King, but these are all teething problems. Times are changing and Thailand, like the rest of the world, has to get with the times to stay ahead of the game, even if it does mean sacrificing some of it’s personal charm to make way for the bleak conformity of globalization.
By The Gentleman Scamp 2006
Updated and tweaked 2010
