#1 En route trivia…

On the way to Brisbane Airport, my Sikh Uber driver told me of his two jobs – the other at Domino’s. I told him I grow a lot of my own food and so I don’t need to spend so much. He thought that was great because I could spend more on other things… doing it to spend less hadn’t occurred to him… (he says, spending big on an overseas trip). But hey, if I weren’t spending big getting out of my bubble, I wouldn’t have had the chance to seed that idea. Excuses, indeed.

One reason I worked for 3 months as a garbage collector in Tokyo in 2005 is my interest in municipal recycling. I’m keeping a little record of how my destinations compare on this score… and on public access to free drinking water, which to my mind, is a litmus test of a society’s health priorities. Brisbane Airport’s International Terminal doesn’t recycle single-use paper, but it’s easy to get rehydrated.

Being a populous archipelago, Indonesia’s air transport would, I imagine, be ideal for the short-haul electric aircraft currently in development. Meanwhile it’s interesting to note, looking out at Bali Airport’s tarmac, the aircraft look a lot like Australia’s mix of medium and small-sized planes. It would appear that with current technology, meeting the demands of a moderately sized, relatively wealthy population on a vast desert continent is similar to a not-so-wealthy, but huge and densely populated archipelago. Let’s hope both countries get some small electric planes soon.

There’s no free drinking water at the airports; only paid bottled water. (The number of children addicted to tobacco is tragic.) Some advice for layovers in Indonesia; don’t leave the airport, even for a nearby hotel. There’s a capsule hotel inside Jakarta Airport that will save you a lot of grief from taxis that don’t accept credit cards going to the wrong destination on convoluted roads under continuous reconstruction. Stay alert; a last minute change of departure gate, indecipherable announcements due to acoustics, overlapping announcements and accents might see you miss your connection.

Doha Airport is massive; 91 gates. The air in the glossy onboard promotional videos of Qatar’s capital city contrasts with the view from the air and tarmac; you can’t actually see the horizon (that’s the city’s skyline in the distance). There’s some recycling… but not paper. I eventually found a drinking fountain… next to the loos.

Warsaw’s Frederick Chopin Airport boasts military aircraft and recycle bins – even for paper – without a ‘landfill’ section! Wayda go Poles… I like you already.

Stay tuned for the next post: