Monday, December 3, 2007

'Tee Din Tong' Airport

My goal is to do 50 blogs by Christmas, so I'm willing to write about anything at this point - even the new airport that opened a year ago.

For those of you planning a trip to Thailand, the name of the "new" international airport is Suvarnabhumi, which is pronounced Su-Var-Na-Poom and means 'golden land'. Sounds lovely, but I would have called it 'Tee Din Tong' (using a simpler vocabulary where Tee Din = Land, Tong = Gold), which is much easier to spell and say. You may have noticed that the 'i' at the end of Suvarnabhumi is silent. Whoever put it there should be fired.

Here are some pictures.



I've told everyone I've met that Tee Din Tong's (also, easier to type) claim to fame is that its departure terminal is the largest space in the world under one ceiling without any columns - not sure where I heard that, so I could just be making it up. Nonetheless, it's huge.

Here's a picture of check-in gates P through T. Keep in mind A through O are under the same roof. Wow!!!!



Another point of interest (i.e. the other one) - Nuch's dad has a mural of one of his paintings in the international arrival gate. It's called "Everyday Life".


Here's the original.

Unfortunately for Thailand's new airport, the runway is cracking, the new Airbus 380 is too big to fit in the hangers (and actually hit a building during it's first test run), the newly arrived noise pollution has forced the government to issue mass quantities of sleeping pills, and finally, the old airport, which was just fine in the first place, had to to re-opened, to accommadate domestic flights.

That being said, somehow it all works and everyone has a great time.

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