Between 2004-2007, and then again from 2010-2013, my family lived in Vientiane, Laos. Part of living in Vientiane is spending a lot of time in Thailand, and in particular Bangkok. Things might have changed a bit by now, but fifteen years ago, if we had a niche need - medical appointments, a visit to an apple store, any number of things, a trip to the City of Angels was in order.
And that meant transiting through Suvarnabhumi Airport1.
Similarly, if we wanted to travel anywhere else, a layover in Suvarnabhumi was the price of admission. To Australia, to Japan, to Europe, all paths flowed through Suvarnabhumi. As a teenager in boarding school, I visited this airport at least 10 times a year. While I can’t be sure, this might well be somewhere between my 40th to 50th visit of this place.
And it never, ever seems to change.
Perhaps that’s a bit uncharitable. After all, Suvarnabhumi isn’t an old airport - it opened in 2006 when I was 11 years old. But in those 17 years I’ve moved house at least a dozen times. Vientiane and Canberra have changed substantially. The world is a very different place - both for me personally and the world at large - than it was in 2006.
Suvarnabhumi isn’t though. Sure the names of the kitchy duty free shops change, but that’s just about it. Everything - the concrete and glass decor, the airconditioning units that double as speakers, the clocks, the plastic seating, the array of fast food joints2, is the same. The recording that plays at the end of travelators is the exact same as it has been for literally decades. And as we discovered, the roof still leaks when it rains. The biggest change is that there’s now airblade hand dryers in the toilet.
That’s Suvarnabhumi - you can leave any time you like, and whenever you return its like no time has passed at all. Our eight hours here went pretty quickly however (highlights include dispairing at the state of the exchange rate and setting up camp within lounge wifi ranges), and we were on our way (at 3AM Australian time) to Paris.
I mean yes, the night train to Nong Khai exists and we did that a few times but generally it was the airport.
Burger King, Subway, Pizza Company, Dairy Queen, Macdonalds. This time did feature a Taco Bell which was a novelty.