December 23, 2009
I love Suvarnabhumi International Airport. It's true! I adore this airport as much as it's possible to like a place. It is clean and orderly, easy to navigate. Staff are polite and helpful. It has shops where people like to shop and food people can enjoy eating. Beyond these practicalities, it's a place full of promise. Arriving, I have always felt joyful. All Bangkok to explore and enjoy — what could be better? But today, I can only repeat the sad marathon I did in India. This baggage claim area is sparkling and insect-free, a sharp contrast to poor dirty dingy Chennai. I wait watchfully by the carousel. I pull my suitcase up as quickly as I can, and run through the building, down long shining halls, down an escalator and up another, to arrive, panting, at the checkin counter. My flight is on Air Bangkok, a no-frills budget brand, chosen for economy. The journey from Bangkok to Siem Reap is short, after all. No need for soft seats, or food. A little empathy might be nice, though I don't expect it. I am informed, brightly and cheerfully, that I have missed my flight by a mere seven minutes, and will have to wait until the next day to fly. Then I am sent to another counter.
I walk slowly. Missed by seven minute. Surely Air India could have done a little better, and shaved seven minutes off a six-hour delay? Or could I have run faster? Couldn't I have avoided this second mass of uncertainty and expense, another day of worrying my family? Tears rise in the back of my throat. I cannot cry here, in the most public of places, in front of hoards of happy tourists. I swallow hard.
The woman at the booking counter accepts my papers and starts to scold me for missing my flight. I have been in Asia long enough to understand this piece of social interaction, and to know how I ought to respond. But today I cannot. The required deflection, the half-apology are not there. The unfairness of delayed flights, the dollars pouring from my never-full pockets, the worry of my still far-away family, the uncertainty that they've received my message, is too much to bear. I try to explain what really happened, knowing the woman behind the counter will not understand, but I am unable to stop myself. She looks at me with disapproval and disbelief, and begins her reproach all over again.
I have no answer. The tears press up and up until they are rolling down my cheeks. Now the woman at the counter regards me with round-eyed horror. So does the woman at the desk to her right, and the man on the other side of her. No one else notices the crazy foreign woman weeping in the airport.
Perhaps Air Bangkok employees are taught a protocol for dealing with distraught passengers, but I doubt it. It is simply that they have failed to stop me from disgracing myself, and now they must mitigate any shame my bad behavior might reflect onto them. Together, they silently decide to get rid of me as quickly as they can. The Air Bangkok woman demands my credit card. The woman next to her announces that I need a hotel room and selects one for me. She goes through the motions of showing me the pictures in her catalog and explaining that it is the best choice, because it is near the airport and has a shuttle that will get me to the airport on time in the morning, and of course she can give me a good discount.
I have never stayed in an airport hotel in any city. In Bangkok, I know some hotels in Chinatown and even in the backpacker district that will cost a fraction of what this room will cost. But there is the expense of the taxis, and with that, the uncertainty of navigating Bangkok traffic well enough to get back here in time. My new flight leaves painfully early in the morning. The calculus of comparing what I would well be able to do on my own with what this woman is offering fails me.
That isn't why I choose to do as she says, though. It is not because I am weak-willed, or cannot do math in my head. I choose the airport hotel, expensive and characterless, because it will not taint my memories of Bangkok. I am assured that I will make my flight. More than that, I am submitting to the impossibility of the situation. The last moment when I truly had a chance to avoid this whole mess was when I pressed the “buy now” button on the SpiceJet web page. Since then, the whole affair has been out of my hands. Let it stay there. There is no need for me to pretend to be responsible for what happens next.
The pain in my stomach subsides a little as I wait for the hotel shuttle bus. I climb in behind an American family. The husband and wife are bickering. She doubts the wisdom of staying at this airport hotel, and would have preferred a place in town. The husband impassively insists that his choice is the better one, but does not elaborate on why. Perhaps he himself is doubtful. Their children, pre-teens, are made querulous by their parents' disagreement, mild as it is, and interject irrelevant little complaints when they can. I endure.
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