Sunday was a sad day. Getting up, packing, collecting my suit, and heading for the airport to return to Europe, leaving so many things still to do, still to visit in Thailand.
When we arrived the first time, we took a taxi from the airport. This time I took a local train, with Thai people and a few brave tourists going to Ayutthaya and Chiang May. So much of me has changed in this journey.
After buying some Thai Whiskey at the airport as a last souvenir (purchase not allowed if your destination was the UK or the US), my flight to Bahrain was announced. In Bahrain I also did some shopping, a beautiful piece of technology and design, product of a Finish mobile brand, manufactured in Germany, but not released in Europe yet. At the Airport in Bahrain I also saw some other items that I still find surprising that are available in a strict muslim country like Bahrain while they are not in free-thinker and open-minded France.
I slept most of both flights, waking up only to have the various meals and drinks onboard, and watch half a travel documentary about Indonesia. At 7h15 in the morning of Monday, local time, we had already landed in Paris and were taxiing to the terminal, right on time as scheduled. Unfortunately, no one was at the passport control desks, so about three planeful of tired passengers had to wait till three passport control officers decided to show up. In any case, lines were not set, and the signs stating which desk was for EU citizens and which for overseas citizens were far too small to be read from the end of the (mob) lines. This ment that many overseas travelers queued to the front of the line only to be told that they had to queue again elsewhere, which didn't make them any happy (or that they could just jump the next queue, which didn't make much happier all the people already queuing there either).
After waiting for some extra half an hour for our luggage, the sleepy mob of travelers headed to the exit, blocking eachother with their luggage trolleys, and trying to sort out all the arquitectural obstacles like columns, half walls, stairs, etc cleverly set there to avoid walking travellers from overspeeding.
Finally we get out of the security area of the airport. Obviously, the signs for the commuter train into Paris, are not only well hidden and small (and only in French), but they direct you in exactly the oposite direction, leading you to the hotel-bus stop. The shuttle bus to Terminal 3 (where the commuter train station is), is the number 2, the shuttle bus to Terminal 1 is number 3. Again, very clever.
At the conmuter train station (of the main international French airport, mind you), only two automatic ticket machines work, and only three ticket desks are open, attended by people who only speak French, and seem to be very upset to have to be working at this early hour.
After this arrival, I cannot say that I've felt warmly welcome back to the "developed" world. But may be it was just my impression. I must have felt tired after such a long journey.
In any case, I manage to get to my train, straight to my place, and to start opening my suitcases, sleep a bit, and get back to my normal life again.
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