Monday, October 25, 2010

A somewhat grumpy traveller

I'm getting fussy, grumpy, spoilt or, more probably, all of the above. Starting this post in the ersatz airport lounge run by Royal Thai Airways in Hong Kong. Its a shocker. More detail to follow.


Since my change in employment circumstance some five months ago I have become, a little reluctantly, a very frequent air traveller. I commute from Auckland Wellington on a weekly basis and I now know how to do it. The flight AKL-WLG is only forty minutes or so so the seat doesn't matter. As long as the row number is not greater than two. What I have found to be essential to make this sort of malarky tolerable, even quite agreeable, is access to a decent airport lounge. Lots of advantages to this. Streamlined no fuss getting from the airport front door to the airplane front door is all good. No queueing with the great unwashed to get boarding passes; just swipe the electronic bizzo on the electronic bizzo swiper, get the green light and you are all good. Swipe one and its all good to get into the Koru Lounge, swipe two and its all good to settle into 1F.


One doesn't get this electronic goodness on international flights but the analogue equivalent is required. Auckland does this well. Check in at desk suitably screened off from the poor wretches taking their tattoos to Surfers Paradise and a separate little lift takes you up to the customs lady without having to walk past McDonalds. Then you are into the Koru Lounge and endless supplies of Black Doris plums and mixed berry yoghourt. Pick your time of day right you get a barista to cobble together a long black. Free wifi (password Kerikeri this month) and all is goodness.


Hong Kong, gleaming new Chap Lep Kok not withstanding does this very poorly. Get off NZ39 AKL-HKG (more of this later) and you are thrust into Kai Tak circa 1975. No fast tracks here. Queue up with thousands of people to go through security. Be shouted at by the pre security screening woman that you don't have a Transit Pass and your Boarding Pass is wrong. Taken by another pre security type bloke to get a 'right' boarding pass. To do this you walk past a couple of hundred people that were behind you in this damned queue and are now in front of you (we'll see about that). New boarding pass is printed and is identical to the old one. Still no Transit Pass. 'Please get in the queue for security'. 'No'. I have had enough of this already. 'Take me via the secret squirrel route to the front of the queue'. This simple request is acceded to. You only have to ask. Nicely.


Shower time so a beeline for the Star Alliance Lounge. Choice of two in Honkers Terminal 1. One run by United (pullease) and one by the aforementioned Royal Thai. That'll be OK. Wrong. Its a shocker. A sort of airline lounge set up like a campsite; an outdoors lounge on a balcony of the terminal. Free wifi to be sure (picked up my itinerary for Gloucester in ten days time) but the nibbles are awful. Chickens feet or instant noodles. Espresso from a self service machine that tastes of acorns and very uncomfy chairs. No matter I am here for a shower. Walk into the ablution bit half expecting a black polythene shower bag hung up on a tree. There is only one shower stall and it is locked; you know - with a key. Trudge back to Camp Mother at reception and am told I can have the key if I leave my Boarding Pass as a deposit. What does she think I am going to do, put her bloody shower into my hand luggage and take it to London? Smile and wave and take the keys to the cleanness kingdom back to the shower. All tools for a shower present and correct? No chance. No razor or shaving foam. Does Camp Mother think I am going to slash my wrists after the hot shower prior to nicking her ablution block? By this time I am sorely tempted. Shower, change of clothes and no shave and one feels a bit better. A cup of acorn extract and a chickens foot and we'll be ready for 12 1/2 hours to Heathrow.


At least my Boarding Pass (both of them) now says 3J. The first leg said 26H which entitles one to sit in Air New Zealand's 'Premium Economy'. Don't do it; shedloads of economy and very little premium. The only advantage to paying extra dosh to get from taxpayer funded Row 56 to Premium Economy is that if your upgrade request is successful (50% hit rate on this trip) you get to a proper seat. Premium Economy is almost as horrible as Economy Ordinaire. Same seat but with 10ยบ extra recline (big deal, you still can't sleep) and six inches more leg room. This is of no use to me as I am built along the lines of a garden gnome. The food is the same wot the punters up the front get but that is about it. I did get the AC power to work eventually after holding my mouth in the special way.


I am at last in one of Air New Zealand's Business bizzos - but the bloody power isn't working. The pod is what it should be with room to spread all ones essential long trip odds and sods around and with no power the only thing to do is ignore the breakfast, have a cup of tea, a handful of melatonin and press the magic bed button. But I don't want to go to sleep at quarter past three in the afternoon in Auckland or quarter past ten in the morning in Hong Kong. It is quarter past three in the morning in London but I'm not in London yet. Grrrr - not a particularly happy camper at the moment.


I am fast coming to the conclusion that if I have to travel long haul I have to get the death adder out of the pocket and pay silly money or just slum it in the peanut gallery and shut up. Neither is very attractive.

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