Hungry Travelers: I dream of ice cream and planes parking in mini Sydney Opera Houses

Some websites say that Suvarnabhumi is pronounced Suwanapoom; others say it should be Suvanapoom (our pilot said it this way). Whichever way you pronounce that word, Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport is massive! It definitely is a major upgrade from the Don Muang airport. As your plane taxies, you can already see the airplane parking bays. They reminded me of the Sydney Opera House.

The passenger walkways from the plane all had images of Thailand’s king, all wishing him a long life. I read that he chose the name Suvarnabhumi. Of course, his picture also appears in almost everywhere in the city. He must really be a great man. I got the impression that his pictures were mounted by people who TRULY loved and respected him. Very unlike the pictures put up by some paid minion of your friendly neighborhood trapo.

We got off the plane and went to immigration. Suvarnabhumi had more natural lighting and, to me at least, felt more open. Kumi and I thought their passport control area lacked space. People took up the whole place. I was even thinking, “This is it? I though it was big.” Hah! The area looked small because there were A LOT of people coming in.

Our counter was in front of baggage conveyor belt #9. Our luggage was supposed to be discharged through belt #21. Boy, that was a long walk to the other side of the arrival area. And what do you know? There was another row of immigration counters on that side of the building. And more people coming in!

If Kumi and I didn’t know any better, we would have blown our pocket money off by hiring a limousine taxi to take us to the hotel. When you go out, the people lined up will offer you their “taxi.” We were looking for the public taxi queue but we only saw big, shiny luxury cars. That couldn’t be their public taxi! Last I checked even Singapore cabs weren’t that fancy.

So we walked back to the other side of the building—another long walk, and I was wearing platform wedge sandals! Okay, still no public taxi. Just limo taxis and the airport express buses. We went inside again and finally saw the sign that said public taxis are in the lower level. Whew! The fare to the city went up 50 baht from two years ago; this time we paid 400 baht.

Our next visit to the airport was for our departure. I saw that they had a viewing deck but unfortunately we were unable to go to it. Next time.

Apparently, you don’t have to pay the Bangkok airport tax anymore. I sure hope that was the case because we didn’t pay anything!

And did I mention that the Suvarnabhumi Airport was massive? From immigration, we walked past the usual airport duty-free shops. We used the moving walkways. We walked some more. We stopped by the duty-free shops, then we walked some more.

And then we saw the Dairy Queen signage. Mmmm…ice cream… We have been craving for ice cream the past two days. Finally, we can have our ice cream and eat it too!

I especially love the location of the DQ store. I love seeing planes take off and land, and from where we sat, I could see the arriving planes. I even saw the PAL plane that would take us home. I could have sat there with my feet propped up on the table, eating my ice cream and watching planes land all afternoon.

But, home beckons and soon we have to board the plane. We walk some more. We go through baggage inspection. We go down an escalator, walk to our boarding gate, then go down some more. We already surrender our boarding passes so we are essentially “boarded,” but we don’t go in the plane yet. We still hang around in a waiting area that had seats like the ones the Centennial Airport has.