At 7:50 AM leaves our flight to Barcelona, after
having
spent the night in Doha’s airport. Arrival to Barcelona is scheduled to
1:15 PM.
After
This could be the first time we wish the flight didn’t
reach the destination on time, but we have a lot of hours to spend in
the airport. Our first task then is joining the line in Qatar Airways
info desk and looking after something from the airline about the more
than 8 hours we must spend in this small airport. The bingo would come
if they would pay the visa and the night in a hotel outside – this is
not pure fantasy as some flights have this right for such a long
transit time. We’re told we have right to dinner and breakfast and get
some tickets to use for that but only in a specific buffet at the
bottom of the hall. This is something, so we take our dinner there
between the few options of this buffet. The beef is good, though.
Then we explore the place looking after the sleeping room we read
about. It is indeed downstairs, beside the mosque, the smoking room and
the toilet full of people washing their feet. The room is dark and we
can see there are some rows of couches looking comfortable. It would be
a nice place to sleep but for it is full, but not full like all the
couches are occupied, no, full like there is no place to put your feet
into it because all the people sleeping on the floor. It is also a
problem for three of the five senses: Sight – although it is dark in
there, the main wall is made of glass in front of a very illuminated
area so light come in and allow seeing the people with no shame on
posture or dressing to sleep -, Hearing – snoring and a continuous
transit of people who, like us, explore the room looking for a place -
and Smell – a few can be done for travelers on transit with no chance
of a shower needing for barefoot and being comfortable in a hot place -.
So, resigned, it’s time to take a place in the seats of some boarding
gate as there are no flights until the morning. All the people here are
going to spend the night in the airport. So we choose the boarding gate
for our flight to Barcelona at 7:15 AM and try to sleep here.
We sleep between yes and no, with more no than yes. Horrible, a
experience to avoid in the future. We spend the time until our boarding
time in the breakfast. By the way, if there are no pictures here is
because it is not allowed to make photos in the airport and we’ve been
explained clear by an officer the first time we tried.
But this night cannot hurt the feeling we’re bringing
about this fantastic travel. We’ve enjoyed it too much that I don’t
remember leaving a place with this feeling of being so sure we will
come back someday soon: we’ve visited a wonder to remember all our
lives as Angkor (in the video above) and participated in an activity to
remember the whole live as feeding a tiger (in the video below). If we
come back we probably would do the same car route and making the visits
we’ve missed: Maeklong market, an entire day in Erawan, River Kwai
festival (this requires the same date as well), Wat Yai Chai Mongkhom
in Ayutthaya, the summer palace of Bang Pa In, the cloud of bats
leaving the caves for hunting in Khao Yai,… and then we would visit
other islands as Koh Lanta, Koh Samui and, of course, Phi Phi Leh, if
ever we’re in Phi Phi Islands again. On this travel in the future we
could go to other countries after that as the rest of Cambodia, or Laos
or Vietnam. The thing is, as Terminator said: “I’ll come back”. And we
loved so much Thailand that now it is in mind in case we need someday a
country change, as we’ve been so advised by the persons we met in our
way.
