spring break (part 4): airport accommodation and coming home

I’ve finished my first week of school after spring break vacations and have finally found some time to post the fourth and final chapter of my spring break chronicles. Pictures are up on Flickr.

Tuesday, March 31: Bangkok International Airport, Terminal Q

We thought we would have a nice problem-free vacation in Southeast Asia. You know, see some islands, chill on a beach, eat AMAZING food, sweat our guts out, get caught in a few “there’s-no-way-this-is-the-dry-season” rainstorms…but of course nothing is that easy. After two weeks of smooth sailing through the Thai and Cambodian jungle and beach-sides we hit our first major problem.

We missed our flight out of Bangkok by twenty minutes after sitting in the most horrendous rush hour traffic I’ve ever seen. Our first cross-Bangkok taxi a week ago took 40 minutes. We had no idea rush hour makes that trip an excruciating and nerve-racking three hours. Never again will I scoff at my parents or grandparents who insist on being at the airport three hours before a flight. We were lucky that our tickets were refundable, meaning that we simply needed to pay a standby fee of $75 and wait until the next flight tomorrow morning. The woman with a family of four next to me at the Etihad Airways customer service desk wasn’t so lucky. She had missed the flight exactly like us but was being told that she needed to buy new tickets…a couple thousand dollars for four tickets.

Right now Mike and I are sitting at a bench making lists of people we can blame (other than ourselves of course) for the unfortunate prospect of sleeping on an airport bench.

Wednesday, April 1: Abu Dhabi International Airport, Check-In Lobby to Terminal A

We successfully boarded the morning flight from BKK to Abu Dhabi, our flight arriving just two hours after our originally booked flight to Almaty took off. Etihad Airways flies from Abu Dhabi to Almaty once a day, so we are flying standby once again. We have a 22-hour layover.

Abu Dhabi is a booming international city in the United Arab Emirates. It lies on the coast of the Arabian (Persian) Gulf and the airport is a twenty minute taxi ride to the beach. We withdrew our Peace Corps stipends for April and hit the city. We drove through the wide, landscaped, sprawling streets past large houses, skyscrapers, mosques and convenience stores with Dunkin’ Donuts. We tried to find an internet café where we could inform PC what we were doing, but only found coffee shops with free wireless where you need your own computer. We walked down to the water and swam in the Arabian Gulf. There we saw a sign outlining all the things you can’t do on the beach, such as play cricket, drink alcohol, listen to loud music, barbecue, camp, abandon your children, etc. If I had had a boat I could’ve made a dash 150km for Iran, though I’m sure the border patrol wouldn’t be pleased and Peace Corps doesn’t allow me to ride in a boat without a helmet. We ate lunch in a large mall, identical to one you’d find in any large suburb in the US, save for the fact that about half of the men were wearing flowing floor-length white robes and the same proportion of women wearing black hijabs. It was a strange experience. In the same somewhat traditionally conservative Arab city where alcohol and cigarettes were nowhere to be found (and Mike did search), I ate a Whopper with cheese at a Burger King in a mall food court and had a Frapuccino from Starbucks for dessert.

On our way back to the airport our taxi driver was talkative. He was a middle aged Hindu from India that had been living in Abu Dhabi for only five months, and he told us a bit about the city. About 10 million people live there, 80% of which are not from the UAE. International business interests and massive immigration from India have created a state in which the native people speak Arabic, but in order to communicate in public must speak English. Our driver said he doesn’t know Arabic and has to use English when speaking to anyone who doesn’t speak Hindi.

This whole vacation has felt a little like going back to the US. I’ve missed things like customer service, spicy food, ice, and overpriced malls in which I can’t afford a thing.

And finally, I’ve found that I synthesize and digest events and experiences better in list form. So:

Things I’ve (Re)Learned on Vacation
Never exchange your money in a bazaar
Fried spiders and crickets taste like barbecued shrimp… kind of.
Genocide didn’t end with the Holocaust
Traffic lights are optional if drivers are careful and courteous
Red-headed white boys still burn with SPF 30 sunscreen applied every two hours
A little customer service and a smile go a long way
A little pepper and curry go even further
A long walk (even two hours with a heavy backpack) is not an awful endeavor
Sitting on a beach under the stars is an ideal location for a theological discussion
Eight-year-olds can be vicious yet effective salespeople
Things dry much more slowly in high humidity climes
Trees are more powerful than stones
80% of Abu Dhabi residents are foreigners
Whoppers are delicious
Always allow at least four hours to cross Bangkok in rush hour traffic