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Out the window over Thailand last week. It's a beautiful view. I understand technology and physics but I'm always amazed at how it all works. It seems like magic when I'm riding along at 500 mph. |
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Suvarnabhumi Airport
(Click on any of the pictures below for a larger view)
I did a run down to Bangkok/Pattaya. I spent about a week down there doing what I do. I met with friends and had a little business to tend to.
I live up in the northern part of the country. When I travel I always fly. At this point in time, all air traffic is now entering the new Suvarnabhumi airport. This was my first pass through the airport and I wanted to snap a few photos and document what I could for the readers at large who want to know a little more.
Coming into the Domestic Side
The flight
down there is relatively short trip but taxing in from the runways seemed to
take forever. I can't ever remember taxing for
this long of a distance from any airport runway that I landed in before.
Seemed like it took 5 to 10 minutes for the airplane to roll into its final position and from there we stepped off the jet just to step back onto a
shuttle bus. The smaller jets don't have the option of loading
directly from a normal terminal so, there were were again taking a second
ride to the actual terminal.
The domestic shuttle busses unload at a normal terminal and you have to climb stairs up into what would be a normal gantry hallway (the kind that extends out to the larger jets). From there you walk back into the boarding gate areas as if you had come off a full sized jet.
The picture to the left here is not from the domestic area of the airport. This is looking out the main terminal. Here you see the glass and steel construction. I believe you looking across the yard to the shipping and/or administrative side of the air port.
The first thing you notice about the port is it's highly steel and glass design. It's very modular. I like the design. The large glass walls are a beautiful design.
After
entering the domestic boarding gate, you'll make a turn and head
down a long hallway back to main terminal and the baggage handling system.
The pathway is well marked and were are several moving sidewalk conveyer
belts to help you get there without much walking. You will have
to take an up escalator or glass elevator to finally reach the large baggage
handling room.
The picture to the right here is the large baggage handling room. I believe this area was for domestic only because I only saw signs in that area for domestic destinations. It is one very large area and there must have been 8 to 10 very large stainless steel conveyers.
I Made a Mistake
When you
first come to the area, your instinct it walk right over the baggage
handlers and loo
k
for the name of the town you originated from. However, in my case, the
signs at the actual hander area were not reading the correct names, OR there
may have been more than one flight being off-loaded in a single hander.
See the name to the right here is Krabi. In my case, by
departure city's name did not show.
The answer
is simple. When you first arrive at the baggage room, please go
directly to the flight arrival electronic board. This located right at
the entrance. It's written in both English and Thai. Just breeze
right down the
list
until you see your flight and then look for the handler number on the right
(in red). From there you can confidently walk right to the
correct conveyer area and get ready to speed through the pick up.
Security is a bit light in this area. I would not be surprised if they
began to have people loose bags to thieves here. I hope that doesn't
happen. Typically in
the
west, your baggage claim ticket is checked against the bag by light security
at the baggage handling areas. I
didn't see any checking going on when I passed through this point.
Exiting the
baggage area is easy. The flow is directly away from the entrance.
That part is intuitive. Taxis are located on the ground floor
and
you'll be directed that way as you exit in most cases. You'll
need to find an escalator or elevator down. It's
fairly easy to do. One of the pathways that can take you between
floor is a flat escalator. This looks like a metal floor
but I could not directly tell just what the linked foot pads were made from.
It leans down level to smoothly take you
between floors. It's quite unique
I did use the taxi service supplied by the airport. I made my way to the Sukhumvit area in Bangkok and my total fare was about 300 baht. I paid highway fees to expedite the trip. Those fees were 65 baht I believe. I was told by some taxi drivers that going to the airport was no good because the traffic was controlled there by (in his words) mafia. I don't know if this is true. I didn't notice anything unusual. Although, I think I forget to pay my driver the extra 50 baht for the airport taxi queue service. I tipped him but probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 or 40 baht (rounded up the fair to 300 from about 270 I believe). I'm not sure why he didn't remind me of the 50 baht fee (as was normal at the old airport). Are they suppose to pull that fee out of their fares now? I don't think so. Oops. Mistake #2, Ahhhg.
Getting out of the airport was my prime concern on arrival. There is not much reason to hang around on in-bound trips. Overall, the airport was working as I would expect. No complaints on domestic arrival services.
My Return Trip, Time on my Hands.
I knew that
I would be back to the Suvarnabhumi airport
on my return flight. I had plans to photograph the entire port but
regulations would not allow me into the International side of the departure
areas. You just can't go there until you are headed out of the
country, and clearly that is not my home front. So, sorry we do
n't
have any really nice shots of the Thai figures and art and architecture is located on
the International side of the airport.
Nothing like this is on the domestic side.
The
customer departure drop off point is all in one location for both domestic
and internationals flights. The first two stations (which I believe
are numbered 3 and 4) are for domestic ticketing and check in. The
following four or five stations are for international business.
The picture to the left if the drop off area for all flights and the tower on the right I believe this their largest control towers. I believe I read somewhere this was currently the largest control tower in service in the world.
My first order of business is to check in and make sure my flight arrangements are in order. You can not check-in before 2 hours prior to departure. The ticket counters and check-in counted seem pretty clearly marked. I didn't notice any problem except for the check in girl was a trainee and I believe she kept my plane ticket. I had the boarding pass and that was all I need to move forward.
Food Anyone?
I wanted to
try out the food at what seems to be the primary restaurant in the main
terminal. You'll see this establishment on the upper floor in side the
large atrium. The name of
the
this particular place is the Sky loft. They have a nice variety if
dishes and deserts up there. What you do
is stop in at the cashier and you pay for either a 500 or 1000 baht
electronic card. As you go around, vendors in each area who
serve up the food (main dish, beverage, and desert), take money off that
card electronically. As you check out, the cashier will return to you
the portion of money that is left over in the card.
I ordered
phad-thai coon. This a very basic dish that is very popular in
Thailand. The noodles were of the correct type and the shrimp
were a very nice size. I paid 120 baht for that. The
food was very good but they did make a small mistake. They placed my food on
a very heavy porcelain plate that was cold. It wasn't
refrigerator cold is was A/C cold. That heavy plate really
drained the heat right out of my phad-thai. The food was
excellent in quality. Price of phad-thai was 120 baht (about 3.25 USD).
The coke in a can, well, that set me back a whole 2.70 USD (100 baht).
That same coke up country costs only 35 cents (13 baht). I also
indulged
myself in somewhat rare blueberry cheesecake at 160 baht (4.38 USD).
That was also a very good quality product. I would buy that again.
The only weakness in the system that I noticed is that someone foolishly purchased receipt
printers that are too damn slow for business. They won't be able
to handle a rush of customer
s
and they know it.
Each receipt at different counters takes about 8 seconds to print.
That would be a real bottleneck in delivery if there were customers standing
around hustling through the restaurant. I was the only guy at
the desert counter at the time and it looked like the worker was stuck there
waiting for the receipt to print out. Over all, the food was very good.
The view is excellent. It's a great place to kick back and relax
before your flight out. Also, I don't know if they had wireless
connectivity up there or not, but if they did, all the better.
Short Walk About
I tried my best to get into the International side of the port, but those rough and tough security girls weren't hav'n it. They looked very serious with those communication devices in hand. I think if Austin Powers were with me, together we could sufficiently distracted these lovely ladies to slip in there, but as luck would have it, I was alone. So, I was limited to wondering around in the massive ticking and check-in area.
The entry
ways to all the departure/arrival gates are on the opposite side of the
arrival drop off points just as you would expect. The flow of traffic
would be correct. You are nearly always moving in an a s
ingle
direction as you proceed through the process of arrival, check-in, and
departure to the gates. There is only one entry to the
domestic gates. There are about 4 or 5 entries to international gates.
Domestic is all the way to the left and international are all the gates on
the right.
You still
have to pay the 500 departure fee. There are a number of booths just
outside the international gate areas. In my wandering around I noted
a promotion of the Rolles Bentley cars. There are about 5 or 6 of
them on display. Nice vehicles if you can handle the fairy-tail price
tag. I think they call this the
Continental
GT. The price on the web is 160,000 USD. I'm car buff so I
like to take a peek when I can.
If you look
around the mammoth ticket and check-in and look skyward, you'll notice an
interior roof line that must be 5
stories tall. Noticeably missing on the common air ducts for air
conditioning and heating. These are cleverly concealed in floor
channeling unit that you see
in this picture to the right. These look like stainless steel units.
I noticed a few workers parking themselves between the these metal "pillars"
trying to cool off. As you walk by these, you're feel the unmistakable
cold air rolling from them. The air is not under much pressure.
It seems to ooze forward like a heavy cloud. On this next
picture of the ticking area, you can look over to the left and see some Thai
architecture over in the International gate areas. This is the most
you'll see on this side of the frosted white glass partitions. Click
on the picture for a closer look.
Departure Time Arrives
My time ran short and I have to make my way to the domestic side of the airport arrival/departure gates. That walk is long and there are a couple of "people mover" conveyers to speed you on your way. Both of these pictures below are on the domestic side of the arrival and departure gates. The boarding of one of the smaller jets essentially the same procedure as the arrive but in reverse. We walked out the normal loading gantries and down steps to the ground. From there a shuttle bus took us to the awaiting jet. Departure was uneventful. No problems on departure. Again a long taxi and a we had queue of about 4 jets waiting on the tarmac to use the runway that we had been assigned to.
Thanks for joining us. I took a lot of pictures for this article. I figure, that reduces my grammar and spell checking (which as you know I'm not keen on). You can't adequately describe in words the new Suvarnabhumi airport. There is a lot to see and I'm sure so much more on the International side.
Maybe you'll be coming over to take a look at this port first hand. Don't forget your camera.
John Galt