Driving To Suvarnabhumi Airport

[corkscrew]

Suvarnabhumi. It is a lot harder to get there than it is to remember its spelling or how to pronounce it. Suvarnabhumi is Bangkok's new (still under construction) international airport. As of now the roads leading to this airport don't give you too many clues as to where you are supposed to go. Using a paper map we headed in the direction of Pattaya. About 25 kilometers from home Golf noticed a small blue sign that told us that our target was off the motorway. Anyway, after about 90 minutes of driving and some 70 kilometers we arrived at the terminal. Five kilometers before that my Garmin Street Pilot showed no map: only the message "You are driving north.".

The airport is truly spectacular. It is much bigger than the pictures suggest. Since it was the Sunday of a long holiday weekend there were no other vehicles on the terminal access road. At the terminal itself only a few workers were about.

OK, now its time to put the Garmin to a tough test: find us the way "HOME" via the web of minor roads and motorways that got us here. First we had to retrace our steps back to the point where the Garmin gave up. At that point I pushed "HOME" and we hoped for the best. ######, if the thing didn't do a perfect job of getting us back into downtown Bangkok.

The SLK burned an average of 7.6 litres per 100 kilometers (31 mpg). A record.

[corkscrew]

How stupid of me. Before setting out yesterday for Suvarnabhumi airport I should have checked the Garmin Street Pilot's 'places to go menu'. Had I done so I would have seen that one of the sub-menus of built in places were the airports of Thailand, including Suvarnabhumi. I would have saved a lot of time. The Garmin pegged the distance at about 40k and the driving time at about 42 minutes (from upper Silom). I think that with very little traffic this estimate is OK.