Sunday, August 14, 2011

Travelogue: Australia – Five Minutes Of Beauty


Goodbye Bangkok ~ Hello London
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While it might be nice to sit next to a window, the five minutes of beauty is not worth being trapped on the inside for the next nine hours. I cannot sleep on planes so I am often getting up to stretch.

Besides, from what I could tell, the entire view of the trip was actually available in the first five minutes. We left the airport to the south, banked right to get back over the land and then headed toward the interior. We were chasing the sunset to the outback. The Sunset won!

In the couple times I looked in the first couple hours of the flight I confirmed what I had been told for the last two weeks. The reason I had seen no lights when we were flying in appears to be that the interior of the continent is almost completely uninhabited! It is not like flying over the American Midwest. Even in The Dakotas you will see the lights of the occasional town and the yard lights of the farm. But in the gathering gloom of the Saturday evening sunset, there was absolutely nothing to see below. Nothing but the red desert in every direction; it could not have appeared more alien if we actually were flying over the landscape of Mars!

Coming over the islands outlying the Thailand coast, there was more light down there.

Best laid plans time: Going back west (well, northwest) there was not enough time for me to have a hunt for a (let alone have an actual) shower. The change between the inbound and outbound flights is only 45 minutes.

So, here is sit my second time in the Bangkok airport and I have only sufficient time to open my laptop, make a quick blog entry, and shut it down again before they call my flight.


Wherever you are today, I hope your day presents you with more leisurely options!

Don Bergquist – 14 August 2011 – Departures Lounge - Bangkok International Airport, Bangkok, Thailand




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