Airports can have funny effects on people. Some are kinder, some are more purposeful and some are simply rude - I'm talking about the people, by the way, not the airports.
I was catching a flight today from Bangkok, Suvarnabhumi, international and thanks to my business class ticket, I smoothly jogged my way through security and passport control and directed myself to the VAT refund counter. I must confess I had spent rather a lot and the duty was worth redeeming.
A man of some distinction was meandering to the same line and I spotted his assumed wife to be languishing behind me. I wasn't in any particular rush and paused at the entrance to the queue letting her catch him up - no sooner had I halted my luggage cart, and from nowhere a second man jolted forward and nipped in behind the first ahead of the wife.
"Yes, everybody's welcome. Go ahead. Don't mind me." I snipped.
The man's spouse then started muttering in Mandarin and the muttering went on all the way to the counter. I had to wait for a convenient opportunity when she at last turned to me to explain that she was "together" with her husband.
"I know, I know." I soothed. "I was chastising this other ignoramus. Not you!"
I inhaled, proceeded to the counter, collected my duty refund and went on my way to the gate.
On board the Qatar Airways flight bound for Doha, where I was connecting to Nairobi, I joked with the stewardesses and stewards and was soon in my familiar seat, E3, all set with a (again as usual) slightly less than ideally chilled glass of Bollinger Rose. All was well in the world. And certainly nothing an ice cube dropped in from a small height couldn't cure.
The flight was uneventful - save a few merry bumps over the Bay of Bengal - and that's how I like my flights.
At Doha, already passing security, I had to get some US dollars for my visa into Kenya, and discovered that the only way to do this was to leave the inner sanctum, that is the premium business class terminal and head to the main transfer. Arriving there, plunged into throngs of transferring passengers, it was like another world.
A world of a jostling, jousting, juxtaposed rabble. Still, I was ushered through security (again) with "business class" priority and was soon on my way back to the premium terminal for peace and serenity.
And so to my third security check at Doha airport. It's all necessary, of course, but I felt the routine speedy processing in Doha is more cosmetics than substance.
As we alighted the transfer bus, I sensed an impatient lady behind me, like an expectant filly, trying to get to the hurdle on a steeplechase before the other nags. But she fell at the first, dropping her boarding pass and losing momentum to get ahead of me in the line.
Her impatience was voracious as she flung her wheelie onto the conveyor belt before my tray was fully loaded; my fingers jammed in between. Did she not know I had just been manicured that very afternoon? Getting one's nails done at the Hyatt Bangkok is not a cheap affair. But alas, she was oblivious and something propelled her forward with verve.
I tried not to think about it too much, collected my nerve - and my tray full of belongings and headed upstairs to the lounge.
I hadn't sauntered, I hadn't lingered.
And then entering the lounge, I discovered the reason for the lady's impertinent impatience: hunger.
She had managed to beat me upstairs, grab a dish over-brimming with Wheetabix, yoghurt and other breakfast delectables and was happily gorging herself. Of course.....it was the hunger that drove her to distraction and distress. But I'm not sure that's an excuse for rudeness to fellow passengers. Or am I being disingenuous?!
Anyway, I plonked myself down at a table far enough from her to be content, and equally scoffed down my scrambled eggs and baked beans.
People are strange when they travel.
