Airports and Lounges

I took the midnight flight out of San Francisco by Singapore Air. With the Air France crash still fresh in my mind, I was painfully aware of every turbulent stretch over the Pacific. It was early in the morning when we finally landed in Hong Kong. The Krisflyer lounge had some interesting items to nibble on: freshly made dim-sums with a chili-oil dip and ice-creams in cookies-and-cream flavor.

This time, I also watched more movies on the flight than usual: Coraline (a very unusual animation movie, the storyline quite dark and quirky but very creatively rendered), Watchmen (I wasn't very impressed), Taken (yawn!) and Valkyrie (not particularly gripping). After a hour's break in Hong Kong, I was re-boarded to continue on to Singapore.

I had a complimentary invitation to Singapore's CIP JeyQuay lounge. 'All the hotshot millionaires of Singapore use this lounge' or so I was told. Apparently, there aren't many high net-worth individuals left or they aren't travelling - the lounge was completely empty. The girl waiting for me right at the arrival gate gave me a buggy ride to the lounge. They even have a special immigration/customs counter for their guests! The lounge is equipped with meeting rooms, massage chairs, nap rooms, food, drinks, etc. You can even have visitors from the city meet you here.

My friendly escort was from Mongolia. When I told her she was the first I had met from her country, she was pleasantly surprised. She said most in Singapore don't know Mongolia is a country, and assume Mongols are from China. She is currently studying in Singapore and was working here as an intern but wants to return to Ulan Bator. She said she likes the opportunities in Singapore but doesn't like the way people are treated here. I also learnt that many from Mongolia prefer to emigrate to Europe rather than to the US or other countries in Asia. Most learn Russian as their first foreign language, but English is fairly widespread now-a-days. Apparently the job situation is getting better too in Mongolia with more global companies entering the country to exploit its rich deposits of gold, minerals and oil.

With a few hours to kill, I spent most of the time writing up these blog posts. Since I began blogging, it has been relatively easy spending these long hours at airports. By the time I get home, I usually have a set of drafts written out that only need to be cleaned up and posted after putting together pictures from my digicam.

There was a huge crowd at the immigration counters and it took over an hour to get out of Mumbai airport. The traffic management continues to be pathetic; my driver took another 30 mintues to get his car, but we were finally outside and reached my hotel without further ado. I hope they use the current downturn to solve the traffic issue before airport traffic goes up again.