Saturday May 20, 2011 9:41 AM Suvarnabhumi airport
Waiting for the Air Brunei counter to open.
It took almost an hour to reach the airport by subway (Lunpini station) to Pemibarta than transfer to the city train to the airport total 55 baht.
I’m concerned that I couldn’t confirm the Royal Air Brunei flight. But there are clients lining up as they just opened the counter for the 12:55 flight.
I guess I will go line up. Steve
The guy at check-in kindly reminds me that I need an Australian visa to enter the country.
Would you believe I never ordered a visa for Australia! So I rushed over to a nearby Internet café and ordered it online 3 hours before flight time. I was in a bit of a panic, but he seemed happy to use my application registration number for validation.
The trip to Australia will take 14 hours, the visa requires 12 hours for processing. I guess I will find out if it was issued when I get to Australia.
Well I’m in on the gate side wandering the kilometre of duty free shops. This has to be one of the largest airports in the world. It simple rectangular building, but it is HUGE and the architecture is beautiful. After an hour of walking, I finally go to gate G1 and run into Bill a nice bloke on his way to Sidney. I can’t call Alex for some reason; my card refuses to connect to his number. I suspect it is because the rate is too high for my Thai international mobile phone plan.
I’m trying to read up on Brunei for now. Malay is the language… Oh dear.
The stewardesses are wearing lovely garments.
The plane is not quite recent, but serviceable; they still hand out double pronged headsets and perform live safety demonstration.
A longish prayer in Arabic precedes the preparations for takeoff, otherwise nothing unusual.
