Leaving From Bangalore

We're leaving today for Melbourne via Bangkok.

Got to fly out from the "spanking new" BIAL airport. The drive up here from home was pretty peaceful, since we live on the outside of the Ring Road and don't have to deal with any traffic to get to the airport.

Goodbyes are always hard, and today was no different. The whole family turned up to send us off (and given the number of times we've said goodbye, to make sure we would finally leave!)

The airport is nice - not great, but nice. The staff who work here, though, think no end of themselves.

We had weight issues with at baggage counter, and the Thai Airways manager - an constipated-looking twerp with the face of a squashed beetle - was the most arrogant of all, and was not even courteous enough to look at me when we were trying to point out that the variation was under 10% (a reasonable expectation given the rough and tumble that the scales go though). He walked away when I asked him to escalate the issue, and it turned out that he was the senior-most cretin working the night. Asking them for a feedback form was met with "we have no customer-feedback form". I was seething by the time I was done with him and we took off the bags, removed about 7 kilos of stuff into a bag which we gave to our folks who were still waiting outside, and were put through the whole rigmarole of standing in line again! And when we finally reached the head of the line, we were asked to even weigh the carry-on baggage!

This is the last time I'll be dealing with Thai Airways. I'm sorry they're part of Star Alliance - I should've taken the Qantas ticket and taken the miles on my frequent-flyer account there!

The rest of the check-in procedure was a breeze. The emigration staff were courteous and efficient and very cooperative (I've only two free pages in my passport and I generally ask them to stamp their stuff on an otherwise occupied page. The security check was over before it began, and the lounge is nice and spacious. Free Internet Access (for only an hour, natch!) means that you get to see this post fresh off the presses.

They've just called for boarding and I'm going to rush. This will be the last post from Bangalore for a while now! See you from the other side of the equator!