Friday 7 March 2008

Round the World Five - Day 2 (Fri, 7 Mar)

View from the terrace outside my room at The Strand.

Itinerary: Arrive Bangkok 06:10 on 7th March, depart 08:15 on Thai flight TG303 for Yangon. At Yangon, transfer to Strand Hotel for one night. Yangon is 6.5 hours ahead of GMT.

They gave me the boarding pass for the Bangkok - Yangon leg at Heathrow, so on arrival at the new airport at Bangkok (open about one year) all I have to do is walk to the departure gate (which seems miles away, past every designer shop you've ever heard of). Then, I find the nearest Thai lounge to get a short break from the hubbub of the airport before we leave. We're bussed to our aircraft, a fairly old A300-600 and pushback five minutes late at 08:20and taxi to the end of a queue of about 10 aircraft waiting to leave. About an hour late, we take off and the cabin crew have just 75 minutes to do a pretty reasonable breakfast (my second breakfast) which they do with customary good humour.

We descend through the cloud layer and I get my first proper view of Myanmar: quite flat, dry-looking with the landscape criss-crossed with drainage ditches. When we're on finals, I glimpse a double-track railway and wayside station. I later discovered it's called Walbargi, but I didn't imagine at the time that I'd pass through it on the train a few hours later. On taxiing to the terminal, two air bridges are quickly attached so before long I've successfully negotiated both immigration and customs at Yangon (formerly Rangoon) and, an hour late, meet the 'Road to Mandalay' representative for transfer to Strand Hotel for one night.

My Bangkok Airport pictures.
My Yangon Airport pictures.

On the way to the hotel, Nan, the lady guide, describes the route, which I manage to follow on the tourist map she's given me.

The Strand was built in 1901 by the Sarkies Brothers, Aviet and Tigran, who were from Armenia. It now has 32 suites. The hotel is high-ceilinged and impressively restored and the staff are charming and very attentive.

My pictures of the Strand Hotel.

I've discovered that the railway I spotted coming in is part of a suburban circle line and that the main station is just under a mile from the hotel so, of course, I decide to travel on it, although a round train trip takes over two and a half hours. There was an amazing crush of people as I walked to the station (the population of Yangon is about 5 million) and street traders selling everything you can imagine. All the pavements have been repeatedly dug up and not repaired, so you need to be alert to avoid potentially serious injury. Outside most shopfronts, the pavements were obstructed by a variety of packaged Japanese standby power generators, some quite large, all wired in a very cavalier manner. This forewarned me that the mains electricity supply is perhaps not as reliable as in the West.

As far as my rail trip goes, I'll spare you the technical details (for now) but, suffice to say, I managed to buy the 1 US dollar 'Foreigner' ticket and made the journey on the busy train - sitting on the floor of an open doorway (the coaches have no doors) for the first half then moving to a wooden bench seat by an open window (the window frames have no glazing) for the rest of the journey. I learnt so much on the journey, whilst becoming the subject of friendly, amused curiosity amongst the locals. I did see a few other Westerners braving the circle line, but not many.

My pictures of the Circle Line.

By the time I'd walked back to the Strand, I was hot and tired but a bath and short sleep restored me sufficiently to make a foray to the nearby ferry landing stages on the river as it quickly dropped dark. After a couple of Coca Cola during the Friday 'Happy Hour' at the Strand, I tried the hotel internet, without success. In fact, I kept trying until about midnight when I finally gave up and went to sleep in my huge, comfortable bed.

My pictures of Yangon.

Round the World Five - Day 1 (Thu, 6 Mar)

Itinerary: Depart 6th March. Thai International Flight TG911 11:50, depart Heathrow Terminal 3 for Bangkok, arriving 06:10 on Friday, 7-Mar-2008.

Well, Gate 24 turned out to be one of the modernised gates, not too bad at all, although miles from the actual aircraft stand, to which we were taken by coach. The coach toured the elderly luggage centre, past areas I'd never seen before, then diving into a newish road tunnel which led us under the old centre and past the Satellite Terminal at the new Terminal 5 to avenue of big jets out in the open where we found our 747-400. The weather was dry, so transferring from the coach via steps to the aircraft was no problem. We pushed back a few minutes late, taxied east and joined the queue of about 5 aircraft waiting to depart from runway Two-Seven Left. After taking off in a westerly direction, we then looped back over north London for our route over Holland, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, the Caspian Sea, the Russian Federation, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Myanmar and Thailand. This is more-or-less a great circle route.

Although it's now an elderly design, I think the 747-400 is still my favourite, particularly when arranged with business class upstairs, behind the cockpit, as on this flight. New seats had been fitted and seatback individual screens. If you're unfamiliar with the controls, it's rather daunting - the membrane keypad for the electric seat has 16 buttons! As for the entertainment system, there's audio channels, on-demand video channels, games and a satellite telephone. I found 32 feature films and numerous tv shows and documentaries. I watched 'Michael Clayton' (yes, Clooney is on my 'A' list), 'Ratatouille', 'The Devil Wears Prada' and part of 'The Bourne Ultimatum'. Shortly after leaving Heathrow, they served a decent meal, Thai hot shrimp savoury, mushroom and ricotta ballottine (not bad), crayfish tails, fig and chutney (no comment). As main, I had the angler fish with potatoes and vegetables, which was very good, finishing off with a coffee and hazelnut mousse in a caramel sauce and a decent cup of tea. All served with proper napkins, metal cutlery using pottery dishes. Thai's reputation for good service is merited. Travelling east, local time runs faster and we soon cross the terminator (the day/night interface, not Arnie) and start our long night passage to the Orient. As we cross the Bay of Bengal, we have a 'Second Serving', as the airline terms it. This is an early breakfast for those who've changed to Bangkok time or a 'supper' to those who haven't. It's very good, fresh fruit, yoghurt, warm bread with butter and frank cooper's marmalade. Choice of three mains, chicken and ham pancake with trimmings, cheese omelette with trimmings (which I had) or noodle soup with pork.

We sit in a metal tube travelling at 600 miles an hour six miles above the earth in outside temperatures of -60 degrees Celsius eating decent food and think little of it. Isn't that remarkable?

My airport pictures.

Round the World Five - On my Travels

"The Journey of a Thousand Miles starts with a single step" - Chinese Proverb.

Well, in my case, the first steps seem to get harder and I only tore myself away from my home and Tai with some reluctance on another journey into the unknown (for me).

I'm currently in the SAS Lounge at Heathrow Terminal 3 (which Thai share). Alan brought me down by car and, for once, we had a good journey down the M40 and, amazingly, a clear run into Heathrow. Check-in for Bangkok was painless and security (through 'Fast Track') was prompt. So, I'm still fairly relaxed and getting used to the idea of going off to 'foreign parts'. It's about eleven and a half hours to Bangkok and then I transit to another short flight so I'm sure I'll be tired by the time I get to bed tomorrow.

Stop Press:

Arrived Bangkok safely. The new airport is HUGE and very glossy. I'm exhausted just walking to my connecting gate. Now in the Thai lounge and about to catch the Thai service to Yangon (that's Rangoon) in Myanmar (Burma as was). Yes, I wondered about the ethics and we can have a debate when I return but, hopefully, I'll have more information to inform that debate.

My airport pictures.