My favorite airport

September 10 2007

Well, I made it to the village about midnight. It took three flights to get here. The airport just before this place is one of the noisiest places in earth. Just sitting in it for 6 hours is enough to exhaust you for a week! People jabbering, suitcases clackity-clacking, cell phones ringing and beeping - all on extra high volume. People don’t seem to know how to change their ringtones or maybe they just all like the default so it’s easy to tell who has a Sony-Erickson, who has a Nokia and who has a Motorola by the tone. Because it was so noisy, people had to shout to be heard on their cell phones. In addition kids were screaming, televisions and radios blaring, and of course the endless announcements: “For operational reasons flight XYZ will be delayed...”. And don't forget the noise of the jets outside.

When I first arrived there was no place to sit. Several plane-loads of passengers were still sitting there, their flights delayed because the vice president had been visiting and was leaving and as a matter of "respect" no other planes were permtted to land or take off until his party had finished their leave-taking ceremonies and departed. So I toured the bookshops with my heavy carry-ons. The coffee shops were full too but finally I spotted somebody leaving and managed to scoot in and grab their table and was able to have some coffee and swap my cellphone SIMs around. Finally planes started taking off and I was even able to find a seat right in front of the air conditioner! (It took over an hour before I got cold enough to move.)

Not only is that airport noisy but it is minimally cooled. They have a special smoking lounge but the air seems to get recycled into the general atmosphere anyway. So it is not the most pleasant place to have to spend 6 hours and today my respiratory system is feeling it. However, there has been a small improvement, they painted the translucent glass partitions in the women's bathroom! It is no longer see through!