Escaping the Red Tide

I’m back in Suvarnabhumi airport, on my way to Singapore, then on to Tioman. I’m glad I got here. Word is spreading around Bangkok that the "red shirts" are enlisting taxis to their cause, to block all the roads in Bangkok. Because of this, I left home even earlier than I really needed to, in case there was a problem on the roads to the airport. In reality, there were still plenty of taxis around to take my money, and almost no traffic to the airport.

In fact, I got here so early that the check-in counter for my Jet Star Asia flight wasn’t opened yet. Fortunately, it wasn’t a long wait. It did give me time to look around and see that the airport is all ready for the Songkran onslaught of travelers. The Thai counters have extra long queuing lines set up and there are added Thai style decorations, which probably have to do with the ASEAN summit as well as the holiday. I just wonder if the Songkran hoards will show up or not. Between the economy and the political unrest, I wonder if people will really travel much this year, or hunker down at home. The airport is certainly a bit more quiet than I’ve seen it in some time.

At immigration, the officers are decked out in brightly colored Hawaiian print shirts, but I don’t see too many smiles. I’m not sure I’d be smiling either, if I had to wear those shirts and work through the holidays.

Since I’m flying Jet Star Asia this trip, there’s no Thai lounge access, but I am comfortably ensconced in the King Power lounge. This is another one of those "secret" lounges that nobody knows about, including a lot of King Power members. If you enroll as a member of King Power’s free loyalty program at their duty free mall near the Victory Monument, one of the perks is access to this lounge in the international departures area. It’s not as nice as the airline lounges – and the food is particularly sparse – but it’s a comfortable place to sit and type, which is very hard to come by in Bangkok’s airport.

The wireless Internet doesn’t seem to be working, but there are a couple of computers to use off in a corner. They seemed to work okay, and curiously, there’s a nicely printed (in Thai) copy of the cyber crimes act placed next to each PC.

I’ll probably have to leave the lounge soon, since I don’t think potato chips is going to be an adequate dinner for me, and there’s no in-flight meal on Jet Star Asia unless you pay for it. Still, I’m looking forward to flying with them again. I was impressed with them the first time I used the airline a year or so ago, so I’m anxious to see if that was a fluke or not.

More from Singapore, maybe.