Panic exponential function - Shanghai, China

My guitar, my bag and Luce, the ear-licking chihuahua

I'm at the last X-ray luggage scanner. I'm traveling from Guangzhou to Suzhou along the following route: subway to Bayun airport, flight to Shanghai-Hongqiao, subway to Hongqiao Station and train to Suzhou-Yuanqu, the so called SIP (Suzhou Industrial Park), a mixed residential, industrial and university area where both L - a friend who works near there - and D - another friend who teaches maths - live. 
This should be the last scanning, since the platform where the train to Suzhou leaves from is right beyond the machine. I can't remember how many of these checkpoints I've gone through so far. In any other place they shouldn't be more than a couple, as I only took one flight. Considering the Chinese authorities paranoia though, and their fondness for this type of technology, it's safe to multiply the aforementioned number by a coefficient ranging between 1.5 and 2.5. Let's say 2: four scanning points is a reliable estimate then, which for just one flight and two subway trips is not bad at all. 
Four of these procedures in just a few hours and a considerable number of bags are really testing my absentmindedness to the limit. Normally I manage to keep it under control by means of a set of automatisms that I have acquired over many years of nomadic life, during which I have come to consider my bags as my only belongings. I have a backpack where I store my clothes and other giblets (after many years of drudgeries I finally realized that wheels are actually useful but as I hate traditional trolleys, as well as hard baggage, I bought a hybrid one, soft with back-straps), a shoulder bag where I keep my computer, electronic devices and other not extremely important personal things, an acoustic guitar in a soft case that I still don't know how to play, and a money-bag where I keep my passport, bank cards and other documents that I don't carry in my pockets for convenience and security reasons. 
I greet the security staff with a nihao and a smile, both unreciprocated, I put the backpack down, I take the guitar case off my back, then the the money-belt and finally my shoulder ba...WHERE THE HELL IS MY SHOULDER BAG? 

The business class humiliation - Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur

I had often heard people talking about it as a quality choice, as compensation for overbooking or damaged seats issues or even as a shortcut to making useful acquaintances. I had always managed to stay away from it though. A proud member of the common people as I am, prompted by wild aversion for the parvenus' habits: golf, exclusive clubs, showy cars, jewels, middle class cottages and, precisely, business class. Finally, after a lot of uncomfortable and dusty journeys, cattle trucks, groups of prisoners, buses in unstable balance on the brink of deep ravines, long waits in no man's land, anti-illegal immigration control procedures, I ended up suffering that ignominy. I can't believe it was me, the same person who complained about getting from Venice to Bangkok in only 32 hours and who intends to do it overland one day just to make up for it. That guy, me, in business class, sneaked in on the sly. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't my choice, of course. The people who hire me to teach the courses booked my flight at the very last minute: all the economy seats were already sold out and they had to opt for an upgrade. Hadn't they done that they would have had no teacher for the first day's class: definitely unfeasible.
That's how I found myself stunned by a sequence of privileges that I have never needed before: dedicated check-in desk, outbound immigration premier lane, luxury lounge, priority seats at the gate, priority boarding, flying sofa, wide selection of glossy magazines, flight attendants stopping by to have a casual conversation (you have never noticed me when I was packed along with the other sardine-passangers there in the back of the plane, are you on the hunt for a rich husband? Well, you can keep looking then...), cool drink after take off, selected nuts (less than 30% peanuts!!! Isn't that great?), brocade tablecloth, tungsten cutlery, crystal glasses, a neighbor that smiles, thanks and nods like an Eton student and then again immigration premier lane upon arrival. Had they caught me walking the few hundred meters separating the airport shuttle station from the hotel, carrying a big bag and a guitar on my back, they would have banned me from their luxury club for life. 
Don't get me wrong, it is all very convenient: those details can totally change the way you travel. They actually make you feel as if you were not traveling at all. Yet, I have to say bad things about them. Even though these whims are not my cup of tea one can easily get used to them. When I come across anything that shines too brightly...I prefer to adopt the tramp's mistrust.

Photo by caribb (CC)

15 hours: a patched-up guide to Moscow International Airport (Sheremetyevo)

What a terrible connection. I just landed at Sheremetyevo airport and my next flight is leaving in fifteen hours. When I bought my ticket I didn't worry about that, as I had an entirely different plan in mind. I had a ten days stop in Moscow all planned out, staying at a friend's who is teaching Italian to Russian students. I did it last year and really had a great time: I still have in mind all that Moscow bizarre stuff and the time-machine-like St. Petersburg charm. If I close my eyes and concentrate I can still feel in my mouth the vodka fire blast and the sour taste of borscht. I would have paid a small fee and the problem would have been solved. Unfortunately the ticket I bought was a super-discounted one and the small fee turned out to be equivalent to half the initial price. Considering that I would have had to spend money for a visa too and that I recently had to face some other unexpected expenses, I had to give up my plan. 

Fifteen hours then. I had time to visit every single part of the airport. I moved around terminals D, E and F, the only ones that can be reached without clearing immigration. It's a very large area: depending on the crowd and distractions it can easily take more than half hour to walk from the eastern side of terminal F to the western tip of terminal D. Moreover, the place has its curious side.

AirAsia: not so cool anymore

Having been a rather regular customer of AirAsia - since the beginning, when they were still using old planes and few people trusted them (“They are always late...they'll lose your luggage.” was the typical refrain people were singing in Malaysia) - I can say that their online booking procedure was fast, simple, transparent and fair, their prices among the cheapest and their brand one of the coolest. Well...not anymore.

Going through just a few screens, filling a limited number of fields and clicking some buttons one could choose date, destination, number of passengers, one way or return, could select their favorite flight among the available options, enter their personal data, the credit card ones and that was it. As I said: fast, simple, transparent and fair. No free meal and no seat allocation, true, but their prices were dirt cheap, really unbeatable on some routes.

This took by surprise the traditional carriers that lost large shares of the market while AirAsia, from a small player of the low cost niche, became one of the sector leaders. A real success story for Tony Fernandes, the Malaysian who, from a Warner Music manager, after acquiring an almost bankrupt state owned airline, got to be one of the richest and most innovative Asian entrepreneurs.

Little by little the disbanded forces of the enemies managed to reorganize themselves, filling the gap, while AirAsia incredibly decided to waste its resources of know-how and excellent reputation accumulated over the years, starting to make some of the same mistakes that had forced their competitors to give up their leading positions, plus others whose copyright its management is fully entitled to claim.

High-altitude scalpers - Medan, Indonesia

Crossing the morning sky, by Docbudie (CC)

We're done with Sumatra, we tick the item in the list and we proceed with our next destination: Java. We get back to Medan and we start to look for a flight. At the first travel agency a bored employee tells us that the flights to Jakarta - and to any other Indonesian city - are all full, for a few days.

"How...all of them?"

"All of them!"

This guy doesn't want to work, we all think at once while we start to look for another agency. Maybe the workers of the local tourism sector are lazy and bored, but this has nothing to do with flights availability. Due to some holiday the Indonesians, the students in particular, are traveling, migrating, flying. To go home, on vacation, to visit some friends, nobody knows where exactly, what we know is that they have completely jammed the national air traffic.

But we belong to an ancient breed of tough travelers and we won't give up that easily. We reach the airport with a rickety taxi. The national departures area is a bedlam of people who are camping everywhere, hoping for a waiting list to be cleared soon. We try the ticket offices of some airlines but this time we are not surprised by their answers: all full! A female scalper who got wind of the opportunity to cheat three pale-faced fools draws near us and offers us three boarding passes for a huge sum.

Stuck at Dubai international airport - Dubai, UAE

A nine-hour wait, what am I gonna do? I find a socket, I plug in my laptop, I switch on the wireless and capture a signal. After a few minutes another guy arrives. Backs against the wall, lotus position, computers balanced on thighs and shins. My mate is a blond Pole, with wrinkled face and clothes. "How long do you have to wait for?" "Oh man, nine hours..." I speak with the pride of a life-term convict. "Don't worry about it, the first twelve hours will fly..." "The first twelve hours! How long have you been here for?" "It's been three days, but I hope to leave soon" This Pole has arrived with a flight from Europe, planning to stop in Dubai for few days. He was told that a transit visa cost four hundred Euros. He gave up and started to contact the airlines, but the flights are full and he got stuck at the airport. He eats junk food, uses public toilets, sleeps on the benches, in no man's land. He walks in a circuit, like a squirrel in a cage, hiking with a backpack among transit desks and duty frees, in a whirl of perfumes, alarms and loudspeakers. The artificial light that damps down the colors. But this guy is tough and his mood is still good, he's developed his habits to kill the hours, he surfs the internet and meets passing travelers, to whom he smiles while he tells his story. I'm not really sure that I would take it that way.

Autumn 2007

Photo Dubai Airport, by Fabio Pulito