Sawadee-kaa: At Suvarnabhoomi airport

The best laid plans do go astray and you learn this the hard way when you start the big trip with many firsts (first independently financed, first 10+ hrs flight, first "long trip etc) with a big boo-boo-leaving the neccessary travel companion-the jacket snug in your cupboard! Armed with the knowledge that some of the cities I'm about to visit have temperatures hovering around 14 degrees and weakened by the body's low cold tolerance levels-buying a jacket was the single most urgent task at the Bangkok airport.

(my flight was not direct- Thai Airways insisted I spend some hours yawning at BK airport, before I was allowed to go to London-But entrepreneurial me decided hunting for a jacket was much more interesting-So there!)

But finding a decent jacket turned out to be a fair challenge-I was faced with 20,000 bags, but only 5 jackets-out of which only one was my size-Since laws of probability indicated that there was bound to be more choice than just one-I set out to hunt for another shop that was kind enough to understand that people forget jackets at home. My feet covered all square feet of the Suvarnabhoomi airport, but nope-bags, bags everywhere-not a jacket to slink.

Usually I hate too-much variety as it confuses the hell out of me-but on this one occasion, I just felt so cheated-Not that the jacket was bad-but having no choice while purchasing, did cause some post purchase dissonance!

The other airport experience (dinner) was surprisingly pleasant- Best green curry-rice I've had in a long time (at Pizza & More-dont judge by the name!). Made a trip to Boots too-impulsive shower gel type purchases, planned so that I could test my new credit cards :)

After all that walking around, I was sufficiently tired and sleepy to just head out to the boarding gate and well, board my flight!

The flight was quite comfortable and thanks to my walking expedition, sleep came easy. What didnt come easy was acquainting myself with the soggy, lifeless dinner plate in front of me. My veg meal request somehow got lost in translation and emerged as a vegan monstrosity-dull looking tofu, some red beans dessert, margarine, dinner roll and some bland, boiled-against-their-will mushrooms! I became that much more indebted to "pizza & more" and that much more determined to change my meal request for, at least, the flight back to "normal veg".

For the breakfast, i hurriedly returned the Asian veg plate (which had steamed rice & steamed veggies!), graciously accepted the normal fare- ignored the sausage and gorged on the omlette.

The small talk with the Brit lady next to me, revealed that 11 of the 14 tube lines in London weren't working-A welcome strike by the tube workers! Nice.

Anyway, Devika was coming to the airport to pick me up-plus weren't buses much better to "see" a new place? I think the yummy omlette made my outlook towards life really positive :)

The journey also allowed me to read my Paris and Rome printouts-but I had serious difficulty staying engaged with strange and unpronouncable names-decided to take on one city at a time and since I had researched nothing on London-I rewarded myself with what else, but sleep! Only to wake up and feast on the marvellous views of the wimbledon, the london eye, the thames and the other readily identifiable places. Paisa Vasool!