Are we there yet, Cape Town?

Hey there, Internet! Heads up – this is the description of my return to South Africa from Thailand in mid-2019. So, relax, this did not take place during the current covid-19 pandemic, although the writing of it is being finalised in mid-2020. Okay, back to the regularly scheduled blogging…

Why has it taken me so long to finish describing the trip? Life back home and lots and lots of work has gotten in the way of my writing. And then you know, just a little global pandemic between friends. But you will still get to hear all of the details. Now, where were we? Well the Grand Thai Adventure had come to an end and I was in the process of leaving Bangkok, but the journey had not come to an end, and if the inbound expedition to Thailand was anything to go by, it was going to be quite the experience. This is what happened on the way home…

I needed to be at the airport no later than midnight. That was plain fact. When I had to leave my guest house, and when I chose to do so, was up for debate. I heard warnings about the trains stopping at 11pm or midnight, but none of this mattered as I knew that the train journey was longer than an hour if I made no mistakes. There was no guarantee that I would not somehow get lost, this may have been my fourth trip to or from the airport, but I had already gone the wrong way two days before, it could have happened again. I needed a good couple of hours for the journey to be safe. Then there was the matter of getting to the train platform. From the three prior trips, the best way to do that from the street was to use the lifts in the Terminal 21 Mall and Terminal 21 closes at 10pm. So, I had to go through Terminal 21 before it closed. Then there was the little matter of the distance from the guest house to the mall and the gauntlet of cockroaches I had navigated on my return to Bangkok.

I packed my suitcases carefully with items for the plane near the edges and then gathered up my other bags and miscellaneous things.  Now all the Bo Sang umbrellas were packed into my luggage, as was my iconic, repaired, red hat, but that was not all the extraneous items I was carrying back to Suvarnabhumi Airport besides my luggage. There was my laptop backpack naturally, my daily handbag with money, my large travel cushion and a bag filled with travel snacks for supper and meals and numerous bottles of water. I also dressed half for the plane trips and half for Bangkok, comically in leggings and hiking boots on the bottom and a summery vest top with light cover up on my torso. So, there I was, two suitcases, two bags, a cushion and a bag full of food and water bottles tied to my suitcase handle. This was going to take a lot of energy to move. I decided to get an early start.

I stumbled, dripping my way from the guest house, along the street and through Terminal 21 at some point between 7PM and 8PM that night. It sounds insanely early but just that little distance with all my luggage was exhausting and getting to the Terminal 21 train entrance left me bathed in sweat. It was then the process of buying the train ticket and then making my way through the tap in points (security opened the disabled section for me and tapped me in). Next was the effort to get to the actual train level platform at Asok station. Now I had bounced my way down a flight of stairs with both suitcases when I arrived in Bangkok, but I wasn’t going to do that leaving and with all my travelling still to come. I found a security guard and half cajoled and charmed him and half simply begged him to open the wheelchair reserved lift for me, which he kindly did. This time I happily made sure to get on the correct train (as in the one going in the direction I needed to go in) and had no more an eventful trip than simply standing, keeping my luggage in an orderly sprawl around me, taking up a footprint several people wide and round, on the train itself. Then the process repeated itself to get to the airport bound train, buying a ticket and navigating more lifts (this time open to all passengers) and making it to the platform to wait for the train. By this time, it was after 8PM and I was quite surprised to see a large crowd gathering at each of the designated boarding points. In fact, the expectant mass kept growing as we waited for the next train to arrive and it was clearly going to be the fullest airport train I had been on in Bangkok. Oh boy was I right…

Once I had fought my luggage, gotten myself onto the train and wedged my suitcases into a wall, I attempted to sidle myself into the bags without upsetting the delicate balance of assorted miscellaneous items occupying the tops of my baggage. All this while the train rapidly filled all around me. It was only later on, probably halfway through the trip, that I read the sign nearby which asked passengers to remove their backpacks when the train was full. Yeah, right. I wouldn’t have done it even if I had seen it earlier. I had too many loose, easily dislodged items already, I wasn’t going to remove my backpack, otherwise known as my valuables safe (it is an anti-theft bag) from my back, a secure location, to give the other passengers 20cm more room. I already had luggage which took up more of a footprint than I did, with or without the backpack.  

Why the focus on my backpack? Well, I was admitting my own travel sin, because I am about to bitch about some other passengers. The train was a mix of tourists and locals. Clearly the Thais were heading to work the late shift in or around the airport, while the rest of us were off to planes. Close to me were a young Brazilian couple (made clear by the language they spoke to each other and the Brazilian flag patch on her backpack) and their little boy in a pram. He was not a baby; he was an older toddler or probably of preschool age and had a wrapped-up leg or it might have been in a cast. Throughout this quite long train trip (at least 40 minutes) he would babble along and try to engage his parents but they would basically ignore him, with the father occasionally making eye contact and the mother completely indifferent to him. Instead, the rest of the random assortment of passengers around them would smile at the boy and make eye contact with him, the only ones feeding the little boy’s curiosity. Yes, I was the inconsiderate bag lady, but I was not the one letting my child become loud, and worse, increasingly frustrated, by ignoring him completely for the entire journey.

Finally reaching the airport stop was a relief, we had lost some passengers along the other stops but we had also picked up more, so it was a large mass of humanity which was disgorged from the train at the station. Once again, I hauled my impressive luggage through the bowels of the station and airport and made my way up to the departures level, not too concerned about my achingly slow progress with all my luggage. When I eventually located the Emirates section of the vast departures floor, I was very pleased to see that they had sensibly opened early check-in for all their impossibly late-early flights. I took a few moments to eat some nuts and crackers and down one of the many bottles of water hanging off of my hand luggage, reorganised my clothing, packed up my small handbag and happily went to check-in and say goodbye to my large suitcase until Cape Town (hopefully).  This was also when I took my impressively crowded Suvarnabhumi Airport photo while sipping and munching away and looking for a working plug to charge my phone.

After this, having done some phone charging and human body recharging, I took stock of my now fortunately diminished luggage, now only sporting my cabin suitcase, the laptop bag and the shopping bag with snacks and water and went off to explore. I spent quite some time checking out the airport, finding a quieter place to sit and charge my phone some more while steadily draining my large water supply. Naturally this also meant frequenting many of the airport’s toilets, some much better than others.

Finally, all my water was used up and my refreshments bag only held solids, I decided it was time to make my way through security, passport control and on towards the gates. I had learnt my lesson the hard way regarding my cabin toiletries, my watch, batteries, power bank and my laptop on my way through Dubai the first time, so bag security was as easy as possible. Then it was passport control on the way out. Now, this being Thailand, immigration control was done by the military and although you would never expect the height of friendliness from any immigration officials, you expect less from soldiers. However, on the way in I was not fingerprinted, only the myriad Chinese tourists around me had been, the way out was another story. Everybody was being fingerprinted and carefully scrutinised and I really mean it. There were numerous Middle Eastern families in my departure queues and the immigration officers even had little children lifted to eye level and the fingerprint station. I can hardly imagine what it will be like coming in in the future with the coronavirus.

I then headed off to the departures board looking for my flight, this was around midnight but only earlier flights than mine were already up on the board. While I waited for my gate to appear, I half-heartedly checked out duty-free however it had already been a very busy, long day and I was pretty shopped out after the previous few days. Besides, you know me and my bargain hunting abilities and duty-free, just means without the tax, it doesn’t equal a good deal and I know a good deal when I see it, which you usually don’t at airports. So, after loitering about for around half an hour, I eventually got my gate, headed there and settled in at a power socket, fired up the laptop and caught up on some of my blogging in earnest until my flight. This resulted in the Chiang Mai wrap up being finished and posted in the early hours of the morning that I flew home, before I boarded my flight.

When they opened the gate for boarding and moved everyone to the pre-boarding gate, I was exhausted and a little overwhelmed by the sheer number of people being crammed into the small area. I remember at the time finding it a little unpleasant and too crowded, probably for safety too. Now, looking back with coronavirus goggles, we all would have gotten covid-19, it was that packed. Luckily, I knew the Thai efficiency and was aware we would board shortly, so this discomfort was only about 15 minutes. I was also well aware of the delights awaiting me in Dubai, this was nothing. Boy was I right.

As is my wont, I had picked the window seat and just like the Thai inbound flight, this plane going back to Dubai was quite swish and definitely one of Emirates’ newer fleet. The flight itself was rather uneventful, blandly tolerable really. My row mates were a tiny Thai lady in the middle seat and what turned out to be a South African lady from Durban, although she was also going home so we would not be on the same flight back to South Africa. The pilot turned out to be a Zimbabwean fellow and at least one of the air stewards in my section were from South Africa – this was the Thailand to Dubai flight not the Dubai to South Africa flight.

Also to be expected, I got almost no sleep on my flight to Dubai and once we landed I was anxious to be off as I had officially only two hours on the ground in Dubai, and if the last time was anything to go by, security check-point(s) and actually getting to the right terminal would take a while. I lost the Durban lady pretty quickly as she had more of a comfortable layover in Dubai and I headed off to security. This time I had learnt my lesson, watch in checked-in suitcase, liquids up top with my laptop and passport and boarding pass in the kangaroo pouch in my poncho, simple…or not. My spare camera batteries in my hand luggage caused much consternation at the check-point, so much so, a senior security officer was called. She pulled open my bag and the little plastic bag holding the package of batteries, established I was telling the truth and was not a crazed maniac and brusquely shoved the packet back. I then had to make attempts at righting the mess she had made of my carry-on and was shortly on my way again, having lost a little more time, for nothing. Luck was actually with me this time though, I did not to have to traverse very far on foot. This time it was much more pleasant, instead of having to brave the Dubai heat to board a bus, I swiftly got onto the train inside the terminal and it zoomed me closer to my Cape Town gate. There was some more hoofing it through my correct terminal but this time, as it should have been the first time, I only had to go through security the once (can you even imagine such an impossible, paranormal occurrence?). Then I got to my gate and the proverbial hit the fan.

You may recall the first layover in Dubai and the mass of people crammed at a gate woefully unable to accommodate the sheer Sea of Humanity (still patent pending…). Luckily, despite my short layover, I was actually rather early, but it wasn’t going to help. The Cape Town gate was next to the Entebbe gate and there were about five seats. For both gates. This is not an exaggeration. Off to the left of the Cape Town gate there was about ten seats, but these were already filled by the people of the gate right there. Yup, my gate was sandwiched between two other gates in a space about a quarter the size of the Bangkok gate on my inbound leg and with a fraction of the seating or standing room. I was not chuffed.

Grumbling, I left my actual gate to search for somewhere to sit in another part of the terminal, almost getting mowed down by a golf-cart thing driven by airport staff and clearly transporting a passenger. They seemed less than pleased by my existence, I think it had to do with the capital offence of being a woman and a foreigner and bodily in their precious way. When I finally sat down, I tried to connect to the useless airport WiFi to confirm to my friends and relatives that I had made it to the unfriendliest airport in the world (granted I don’t have hundreds to compare it to, but it still ranks lower than all the others, including the worst visit to Istanbul airport which involved a toilet that had one of the most toxic smells I have ever in my life experienced, which still ranks – haha – higher than Dubai) and that I would actually make my flight home. I think the lack of seating and general nasty attitude is an attempt to get the traveller to go shopping in duty-free. Oh, boy, were they wrong with me, I was already tired but treat me like a turd and you think I will give you money? No. Never. I then went and queued for the toilet, washed my hands and promptly opened my hand luggage right in front of the Men’s to find my toothbrush. At this point I couldn’t have cared any less and would probably have snapped at anyone who had a problem with me eking out a little space to enable myself to actually accomplish a tiny modicum of human hygiene. Was it obvious I was done with Dubai?

I went back to the “gate” which was now filling up every available and unavailable space with the Cape Town and Entebbe passengers and I took up a spot opposite the “gate”, under some signage where clearly no one was meant to stand. There were some Entebbe-bound people there too. I munched on some mixed nuts from my Bangkok stash and dared Dubai airport staff to make me move.

Luckily, I was not standing there like a doofus for too long. Long before the scheduled boarding, they opened the gate and they scanned our passports. Now we were suddenly in a huge seating area and I promptly sat down and started eating garlic crackers while the rest of passengers started to be scanned in (I was near the head of the queue). We stayed in this holding area (appropriate since most of us were from Cattle Class ™) for quite a while this time as more and more people arrived. As you will see later, I was lucky with my two-hour connection, I suspect a number of people on my flight were not. Whatever, I didn’t care at this point, I had snacks and I was sitting on an actual chair in Dubai Airport. I was more than good.

Eventually we were taken down some stairs to a lower level and to some automatic glass doors. I recognised what was coming next, a bus trip to our plane, oh well. We then gradually boarded our buses and then started off. I assumed the trip to the plane couldn’t be more than a few minutes and then I would be in my assigned seat for my next flight. Now, as is obvious at this point, Dubai airport is a very big place and when we started along a demarcated road, I thought our plane must just be a little further away. But then we were still travelling. I didn’t have my watch on me, however, as the bus ride continued, it became clear that our plane was not nearby at all. As the journey (and it was definitely a journey) didn’t end, the feeling and mood in the bus changed to one of shock and disbelief. Every time the bus braked, turned, slowed down or came close to a plane, there would be a collective intake of breath and then a gasp and exclamation from one or more passengers as we passed by each possible destination as not ours. I may not have had my watch on me and I don’t know Dubai Airport at all (other than knowing I can’t stand it), however the bus ride continued and continued and when we finally did reach our plane it had to have taken between 20 and 30 minutes to get there! It was like some elaborate prank or the ultimate display of contempt for a plane heading to Africa, I am still not sure which. What was painfully clear was that our gate and our plane where at other ends of the airport, probably at separate terminals. I have never had such a ludicrous plane experience, not my worst, just most ridiculous. But I had actually reached my plane, finally!

When I found my seat and put my hand luggage away, I heaved a sigh of relief. It was over I was on my plane, I was going to make it to Cape Town on my assigned flight, I was not going to be stuck in accursed Dubai Airport any longer and I had no more connecting flights to make, this could take them as long as they liked. Once I really settled in, I started watching a movie and got a full 45 minutes into Shazam! before we took off. Yup, wow! Obviously, Emirates don’t like bearing the cost of putting passengers on the next connecting flight when they book tight layovers. Maybe that would have meant they would have held the plane for me if I had been the one who missed strict departure time. But with my Dubai Airport luck, probably not. It didn’t matter, we eventually did get into the air.

To add insult to an already long day, the plane was by far the worst Emirates specimen on the entire Thai adventure. It was the tiniest with the worst space and legroom and was certainly the oldest, it reminded me of South African Airways’ most tired planes in their fleet. I also had an American mother and adult daughter duo next to me and although they seemed quite pleasant, they were a little too American and loud for me after what was already almost the longest day ever. Fortunately, they slept for a lot of the flight. I didn’t. I tried, but as is not surprising, my insomnia kept me in semi-conscious but uncomfortable woolly awareness for the entire flight. I watched a lot of films and TV shows that I could barely remember even a few days later, let alone now, (all of which is unlike me) and played some games. I kept playing Who Wants to be a Millionaire, and as we landed in Cape Town, I made it to the final and second-last questions twice. I am not sure if I won either of those games, but that tells you just how shattered I was. But the good news was I was home and I still had all my assorted items from Bangkok.

On my way to an effortless and uneventful passport control return to Cape Town, I saw my family at arrivals and waved enthusiastically a few times before they recognised me. Hilarious! What was not funny in the slightest was the sight of my luggage when it came rolling along the conveyer belt. One corner was completely caved-in and there was a huge, open crack on the side wall near the handle. My beloved, well-travelled, turquoise suitcase was mortally wounded! It was very upsetting that this companion on so many prior trips had been so badly damaged, but at that point, what felt even worse was that I had to report it before I went home. My heart sank. I went to the correct window before customs and joined a number of fellow passengers from my Emirates flight to log our damage claims. There were about 5 or 6 of us, a couple of slashed soft bags and the rest woefully wrecked hard cases. Even with the whole corner dented in and the massive crack, mine was not the worst case (haha, puns!), a slightly older lady who was brought up by an airport staffer in a wheelchair had a hardcase which had its entire top end smashed completely. She looked like a tourist and that bag was not going to be anywhere near usable to her at all. I completed my paperwork and was told a company who deals with Emirates baggage damage would be in touch to collect my suitcase in a few days, for inspection, and would then repair (yeah, right, good luck with that one!) or replace it.

After that I stalked past customs in a foul mood dragging all my luggage including my fatally injured suitcase and finally reunited with my family after the adventure of a lifetime with one last airline sting in the tale to explain their wait for my appearance. The next few days were a blur of catching up with people and trying to get some sleep – from the time I left my hotel in Bangkok to the time I re-joined my family in Cape Town was well over 26 hours of travel and I hadn’t slept since the day before that! To leave that last little bitter taste in my mouth after the suitcase saga, I discovered when I got home that I had lost my last remaining nuts and crackers somewhere between the baggage claim and getting to the car. I had kept that food with me halfway around the world, all over Bangkok, through Dubai and through some of Cape Town and I lost it on the home stretch! It was a meaningless thing, but I had done so well and failed just at the end! Plus, those garlic crackers are delicious and you don’t get that flavour in South Africa. Oh well.

Very long, long story short, it took a few weeks (gosh, I still think about that poor tourist in the wheelchair, did she even get a new bag before her holiday was over?), but I did get a new bag. The company collected my dead beloved (sorry, I was so exhausted, I never took photos of the carnage) and then…nothing. I called and followed up a few times and they apologised and said there was no stock of my suitcase in turquoise, would I accept a black one? At that point I didn’t want to be out a bag so I said yes. And thus, red-hatted and ready for the next adventure, is my new, slightly smaller, less sturdy, black suitcase. I even had to buy a bloody luggage tag! (The old one had the luggage tag built-in; I still miss that girl!)

So here we are, at the end of the story of my grand Thai adventure and so long after it all began. I have a new black bag which is waiting to be used and if the world was the same world I went to explore in 2019, I am sure I would be planning, or going very soon, on the next journey.

But it’s not.

We are living in a different time now, another world where travelling is one of the most dangerous things you can do (despite what the airlines tell you) and there is no way to know when we will get back to “normal”, or at least our old normal.

So, will I travel again? You betcha! Will I do it very soon? I kind of doubt that. Here in South Africa, you can’t travel for leisure right now, our external borders are closed and you cannot travel domestically for fun, only for business. I will be honest, I am still getting to grips with the routines needed just to go out into the current corona-world. I am getting there, it just takes time to adjust and decide on my own, personal acceptable risk level. So, does that mean I won’t go travelling until there is a covid-19 vaccine? No, because we could be living with this virus for years to come. No, it means that until it’s legal once more and the world has figured out how we travel again, and I have decided for myself what I am willing to do, and I have money (do we remember money?), I am just going to be sticking right here. So, the new black suitcase will have to wait a little longer, along with both of the red hats, but they won’t have to wait forever, that’s for sure.