Going Down

It was time to join for the next part of the trip, going from Bangkok to Singapore, with a connection to Sydney.

Bangkoks new airport, Suvarnabhumi, has had a lot of press in the time since opening, especially for some construction flaws. But it has earned widely praise for its design and architecture. I can not totally agree with that. It is very greyish, and to my taste, ceilings are a bit low in certain parts.

Albet there is a lot of light, it does not look comforting or inviting. Design of KLIA / Kuala Lumpur International Airport or the new Hong Kong airport are better in that respect, as they offer more polished metal than plain concrete, and brake strict technical structures with the warm tone of wood.

To me also the "passenger flow design" is a bit strange, meaning mainly where security controls are located. Here in Bangkok it is designed that you have several fairly large groups of gates, that share one security control together. After this control you may still have a long way to walk up to your gate, and you can not exit the security area again... This is a bit odd to me.

Anyway, first part of the trip was in an real classic airliner, Thai Airway's Airbus A300-600
(Photo taken in Singapore Changi)

I have not flown on any of the A300 Series aircraft for years, and even my last A310 experience may be about 10 years ago, when our national carrier still had them in service.

It is very obvious how cabin interior design has changed in the last decades, allthough this aircraft, HS-TAS, is only 14 years old. It is nice to experience this "old airliner style" from time to time. Flight was flawless and we arrived perfectly on time in Singapore.

I had planned for a four hour brake here, as german Television RTL has requested for an interview with me on the A380 inauguration flight comming up. As I stated before, I like that kind of attention, and so I was more than happy to spend my - else maybe boring - brake with them, shooting and interviewing in Changis departure hall.. I'm looking forward to the airing, it was quite fun to work with them.

As time passed quickly our flight to Sydney was already prepared for boarding. This time I'll still fly the old Queen of the Skies, before returning in two days on the A380.
I still find the 747 to be a very elegant looking aircraft, but I have seen the A380 in reality only for a short second when I arrived from Frankfurt in Singapore, being prepared on the apron maybe for some tests.
Flight was well boked on this leg of my trip again, and by accident I had my seat located next to two german ladies who were tripping to Australia for a 3 week exploration. They gave me some quite strange looks when I told them that I was going all the way down only for two days.


As I took the night flight, departing at 8.30pm in Singapore and arriving at 05.30 in Sydney I spent most of the time sleeping, as to have as much energy for Australia. It will be my first time in down under, so I have quite a tense sightseeing programme. And as the hotel surely would not let me check in that early, I prepared for an immediate start in the early morning.


We touched down punctually, after a short 7,5 hours flight. Australian immigration is a bit different to the others I know so far. They are very strict on importing any raw food and plants, as they fear of pests and diseases. It is controlled quite strictly , with draconian fines imposed.

But I took also this "small challenge", as I did not carry anything edible with me except than a pack of jewing gum, so I finally may announce: I am there - my first time in Australia.

One night in Bangkok

Okay, its actually two nights. But I like the song by Murray Head, so please excuse me for the confusion.



Anyway, it's been a long time since I last visited Bangkok, and since my friend Sindre moved here recently I got a better reason for doing so. So when the opportunity came to fly the A380 of course I had to somehow get down to Singapore, and the Singapore Airlines Staff in Frankfurt was quite helpful in offering the best travel plans. And when I am already in Singapore, why not visit my friends in the region as well, and so I expanded my journey with flights to Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur.

Because of the intial delay my short time in Bangkok was even cut shorter, yet Sindre pulled all the strings to make it an enjoyable and relaxable stay, before going on another long journey all the way down to Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. But next time, I'll try to have less Chablis....

Smooth as Silk

To cut a long story short, of course I could not succeed on the waitlisted flight and therefore had to wait for the 3.30pm departure. I spent the time napping away in the small but cozy loung. I was more than 24hours on my feet already, and not having slept on the longhaul flight I was extremely tired.But it was worth waiting for it, as there happened to be a Boeing 777 used on that particular rotation. Now I have to confess, despite being highly interested in the Airbus A380 firstflight, my preferred airliner today is the 777. It is modern, it is comfortable, and it looks elegant. And of course it's also a success story for Boeing, having more than 1.000 pieces sold already.

Another nice side effekt of this intercontinental airliner is the luxury of the business class.

I really like Thai's colour design, the violet tones look very comforting, calming and inviting.
And as I was extremly tired, my back hurt and I was all tensed up, the ability to just stretch out and relax was the best thing that could happen.

Also food on board was great, with a good choice of wines, and to speed up my relaxation-process i indulged myself with some glasses of chamapgne....sat back....and fell sound asleep.

Too bad that the good things in life last just for short, but finally I arrived to Bangkok

Sometime has to be the first time

Well, the flight to Frankfurt onboard the Lufthansa Airbus A321 D-AIRY was hassle free, and we arrived perfectly on time.

But my mood started to deteriorate quickly when I first discovered an anounced delay of my flight bound for Singapore of one hour. If Singapore would have been my final destination for that day, no problem at all, but I had another flight booked, connecting to Bangkok, and had only planned for 1hour 50minutes of connection time. Of course a start delay can be reduced during a 12hours flight, but I got cautious, so I checked back with Thai (who will provide my connection flight) and found out that my ticket is rebookable without restriction, so in the unlikely event of gathering even more delay and not making the connection I could be on one of the following flights.

As I had still plenty of time - it was around 10.30 pm, flight SQ0025 was scheduled for 12.35pm and now delyed to 1.35pm - i checked on my pre assigned seat for the recline-thingy, and while talking to the friendly Singapore Airlines ground staff she noticed that my seat was already assigned to somebody else (mind you - I already have a boarding pass printed out), so she had to give me another seat, but no more aisle seats are free. Oh how great. So I'll seat 12hours crammed in a middle seat. At least, I was offered the emergency exit row, so I could stretch out. I thought.

I spent some time wandering around in Frankfurt, and as it was about boarding time, I moved through the security check where I had an interesting discussion on my noise cancelling headphones, which have been taken apart by the security officer because they looked suspicious. Why should there be electronic circiutry in a headphone, so it must be something hidden in there. But after all, he let me know as I could reassure him that I won't harm anybody.

Arriving at the gate, we were told that the aircraft that arrived one hour delayed from NewYork had a technical problem which they trie to fix, but don't know how long it may take.

The sign still showed the original delay so I did not think much about it, but as two mechanics started working on one of the engines, I saw my connection vanishing.

So from the initial one hour delay it became a one and a half hour. Two hours. It is the first time that I have more than 10minutes delay on an intercontinental flight. Till now they always ere more or less punctual, and I have been flying a lot, especially to asia, so I did expect the same today. But well. Probably we make up some time, and probably my connection will have some delay. I'll see soon enough.

Finally we boarded.To my great delight i found myself crammed between two guys double my size (and I am already) big, with a smell as if they have not showered for weeks.

Hurray. The aircraft was 100% full (in all classes), so no chance to escape. It can't get any better, can it?

So I crammed myself in as well and held my breath.

Flight attendants were very professional, but it did not feel friendly or family like as I was used to it from other s/e asian airlines, which may be a result of the 100% load.

I spent most of my time sitting in one of the crew seats, it was not very comfortable, but at least the air was not polluted there.

In all other respects the flight was quite un-eventful, but it was the first time that I was more than happy to get out.

Well, sadly we could not make up much of the delay, and also my connection on TG404 was not delayed, so I deboarded the aircraft right when the flight left.

As it was booked as a supplement later on a different ticket, Singapore Airlines declined to help me rebooking, the transfer clerks at Changi could not help me either, so I had to immigrate and work it out with Thai Airlines directly. They were friendly and helpful, but of course the next flight was fully booked, so they guaranteed me a seat on the flight afterwards, with standby on the next.

So now that meant waiting. It was 09.00am, they could tell me if I was accepted as standby at 12.00pm, and the secured flight would leave at 3.45pm....

Ready? Go!

Finally, at the airport, checked in until Singapore, but my luggage is already checke through until my final destination, Bangkok.

Some persuasion was needed to get the nice checkin agent to doing so, as she did not understand that I wanted my luggage checked onto a flught that departs tomorrow...she kept asking wheter I really would not need my lugage that night... no further comment.

Anyway, I've got my boardingpasses for the first two legs, and to my displeasure I am seated in 38D on the FRA-SIN leg. My seatguru.com information tells me that my chance is 4:1 to be seated in a row with limited/no seat recline. So I'll tryto change my seat to something different in Frankfurt, i've got more than enough time anyway.

In the meanwhile, I sit back and relax and wait for my boarding time here in Vienna.

In preparation for the first takeoff

After some very hectic days (why do people ALWAYS need something immediatly when you are at 110% productivity already) with little to none sleep I'm finally filling up my suitcase. When i take a look at it it resembles more the sortiment of an electronic equipment salesman

Its an assortment of power cables, adapters, chargers, firewire and usb cables, batteries for one digiSLR, one compact digicam, and one DV-cam, tapes for the videocamera...

Electronic things make life complicated - but just because we allow them to do so.

Anyway, I got my first Singapore Airlines A380 Model! It was a present on Wednesday's press conference.

It's in 1:400 Scale and looks nice.... we'll see how well it translates into the real thing

So I'll continue to get my things together. At 07:50 AM my Lufthansa flight starts to Frankfurt, connecting to SQ25 to Singapore.

But I'm sure I'll blog before going on the long route.

Routing

Finally all travel plans are fixed and confirmed, and besides the trip on the Singapore Airlines Airbus A380 there is a lot of criss-cross flying in the region.

So this is how my travel map looks like this time:

I'll be starting on Saturday, October 20th with Vienna - Frankfurt - Singapore, arriving on 21st in the early morning and immediatly connecting to Bangkok. There I'll meet my dear friend Sindre (some of you might remember him from last year's Korea and Malaysia trip).

After a mere three relaxing days I'll head back to S'pore and after a short brake of about five hours I'll continue my trip on to Sydney, enjoying still the old flagship of the skies, the 747-400. That will be on 23rd. Arriving early morning on 24th I'll do some intense sightseeing in Sydney - have you ever met someone that crazy that flies all the way from Vienna to down under just to stay there only for 2 1/2 days?? - and then the big day comes.

Singapore Airlines inaugural (return)flight from Sydney to Singapore on the new A380. Okay, i've to confess, it's not the first-first flight, but only the second-first flight. Still I am excited like a little kid, that I have this great chance to be part of this whole event. Funny enough, I paid for this "one in a lifetime experience" as Singapore Airlines is calling it less then a regular oneway ticket would have cost. I told you before, I'm a cheapskate, and a lucky one after all. And yes, it was a lot of luck.

Anyway, after returning to Singapore, I'll stay there overnight and in the early morning I'll fly again to Bangkok, this time via Kuala Lumpur. Why again back to BKK? Well, I mad it my homebase for this trip, so I don't need to carry all the stuff you usually have on a two week trip with you all the way to Australia. This makes life a lot easier.

After another four days in BKK I'll visit some old friends in Kuala Lumpur, and then finally I'll head back via Singapore and Frankfurt to Vienna.

Yep, it's a lot of flying in the upcomming weeks. But I love it.