Third Time At Suvarnabhumi

[chiang mai]

My first flight into the new airport was from Chiang Mai, three days before the offical opening. The Thai airways pilot did a near touch and go landing and had to circle because he was too far down the runway on the approach, not very reassuring. But once you do eventually land the airport resembles a hybrid of Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur in many ways. All the bits are there but it will take some months before it all starts to run even close to smoothly,

Second and third trips yesterday during a one day visit to Bangkok and things seem to be going down hill. The meter taxi are starting to play their old Don Muang games of holding back and trying to find fixed fee customers. airport to Sukhumvit was 175 baht on the meter and 60 baht in tolls. Trying to find a Bangkok taxi to go back to the airport was a real hassle and nearly all wanted a fixed fee of 400 baht - just kept on trying and finally got one to turn on the meter.

There's a shortage of useful signs in the airport thus some things are hard to find - loads of people standing around to ask quaetions but many unsure of the right answers. Only one two cubicla toliet in Domestic departures and a queue a mile long - food in the eatery is expensive, 70 baht for a slice of pizza and 80 baht for a small bottle of water - food hall location is not that obvious and not well signed.

Overall impression is that it's good, big and involves a lot of walking. Figure it will settle down into normalcy in three months or so but needs the skytrain link to before things are optimal - expect to see that around 2010.