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The good thing about an early morning flight is that Bangkok's traffic is much reduced at 5AM. The other side is that, well, sleep is good too. Bangkok's main airport, Suvarnabhumi (there is a secondary airport used mainly by Low Cost Carriers for regional flights) is a very large airport as you would expect. But unusually, the whole airport is just a single massive terminal. There is only one passenger terminal, and the efficiency with which immigration, security, and check-in operates with all passengers in the same place is quite impressive.

With all this efficiency and lack of traffic, I was through immigration and at the gate with two hours to wait for my return flight to Warsaw with Finnair via Helsinki. Finnair operates an A350 on the BKK-HEL route (twice daily!) which is probably my favourite aircraft to look at, from outside. It's just a really sleek, cool design. And I do particularly like the Finnair livery. In fact, I think the overall Finnair branding is the most sleek and cohesive of any airline I've flown. They've gone for the silvery white and dark blue all over and it looks excellent. Even the boarding passes have really tastefully done wintery reindeer and flower designs.

Out on the tarmac was a Norwegian Air International B787 aircraft. A few months ago (actually probably over half a year ago now) I had heard that Norwegian was going to start flights to Bangkok but they were yet to receive the notoriously difficult Russian flyover rights. I don't know if they ever got the flyover rights or if they're adding about 40 minutes to flight times by going around. I think Norwegian wants to do flights to East Asia too, but those can't be done without the flyover rights so I hope they've got them. Norwegian is in the budget long-haul market, so it will be interesting to see if they can cut prices between Europe and East/South East Asia.

While I was waiting I got a tea and decided that it would be a good idea to have tea with a hint of Sprite. In my head it was black tea with sugar and lemon. In reality it's black tea mixed with Sprite, which is not the same thing. I wouldn't recommend it.

Regardless of how pretty the plane looks (from the outside, I'm not actually super impressed about how it looks on the inside which, I suppose, is probably more important for the passenger) Bangkok to Helsinki still takes more than ten hours sat in a metal tube filled with people and explosive liquid. Actually the A350 is composite so it's not even a metal tube. Or to quote a US religious leader's justification for buying a private jet rather than flying on commercial airlines, it's a "tin can filled with demons".

I did watch one film that I thought was 'interesting' called Rampage. It's the most ridiculous and scientifically nonsensical film I have ever seen and it tries to be completely serious and scientific. No spoilers regarding characters or plot, this is just the context, but right at the start of the film is a sentence stating what CRISPR is. As in, the gene editing technology. Then they use that sentence, which doesn't actually explain what CRISPR does, as an excuse to do whatever absolute nonsense they like and vaguely state that that's all scientifically accurate with genetic engineering. You've taken the 'speed gene' from a Cheetah, 'size gene' from a blue whale, 'strength gene' from a beetle and then turned that into an infectious pathogen? Presumably also the 'bullet proof gene' from, well something. That's now how that works! That's not how ANY of this works! And there's a hippyish primatologist who can talk to animals too because well obviously. It's vaguely entertaining and the scientific nonsense could be funny, but there's already enough anti GMO and anti gene editing nonsense without this.

We landed early which is actually quite common because most airlines build in extra time to their flight scheduling anyway, and my connection at Helsinki was just under three hours which is quite a long time relative to other connections with Finn but isn't really that long.

Upon arrival I was greeted with cold spitting rain and a bus to the terminal. Helsinki clearly doesn't have enough air bridges. As I was wearing my usual thin light tropical birding gear (because that's all I had) and it had not occurred to me at all that it might be cold in Finland. As I was packing my hand luggage I deliberately put the rain coat in my checked bag because I wouldn't be out in the rain. I've forgotten that the cold is a thing too. It wasn't all that cold, 18 degrees according to my phone, but I've clearly become quite used to the heat because that felt chilly.

As soon as you arrive, to go to the transfer section, you immidiately have to go through security. You know, in case you've built a bomb while on your flight or something. I get that they can't be sure of the standard of security where the flight originates, but they have to trust it enough to operate flights that originate there. And what do they expect you to do? Smuggle explosives or weapons through a theoretically weaker security at a different airport but not use them on your first flight, instead keep hold of them for your connecting flight? Stupid. I cleared immigration and customs at Helsinki too but that's normal because the flight's within the Schengen Area now so gets treated as a domestic flight. I would complain about things some more, especially about how everything's so expensive here that I'd need a mortgage to buy a croissant, but I'm at Helsinki airport as I write this and I'm really tired now. The whole of the first flight was in the day an in my usual waking hours but the second flight is a takeoff late afternoon and land early evening one which, is a middle of the night to stupid o'clock in the morning Bangkok time flight.

I had an Embraer 190 as I did on the outbound flight. It's a nice little jet that makes a change from all the boring A320 and B737 family aircraft. I had an older plane judging by the interior, but I like the E-jets, nice little commuter aircraft. It's just under a two hour flight from Helsinki to Warsaw which I mostly just slept on, although I always stay awake for takeoff and landing because I really enjoy those bits. When I'm tired I can sleep on planes no problem, but the BKK-HEL flight was entirely during my usual active hours. We were we were a little bit delayed in taking off due to a failure in the phone system between the cockpit and the cabin, but less than half an hour and no biggie.

And now I'm home. Not sure what to do now. Actually, I know exactly what to do which is to sleep, but yeah. I would post something more coherent as an ending but I'm far too tired. I will do a roundup post, maybe tomorrow or if not then in a few days. But I'm home now. Certainly a great trip.

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