Day T0: The Flight That Wouldn't End

August 8, 2024

The lounge experience was top notch, and the combination of all that buffet and free flow wine was tempting to say the least. Given that I just did a fitness class, I wouldn't want to trash all my hard earned results and waste such a unique stopover journey. So instead I settled for portions of healthy food and a small glass of wine.

In the end, that fitness class would later save the day, or in this case night.

Portions of healthy food with the equally healthy wine

In what universe do you sail through airport security with a bottle of water? In this one apparently.

While exiting the lounge and checking the board for flight departures, I noticed a severe delay. It would leave at 6:10am, not the 1:50am it was supposed to. No, this couldn't be right. I looked at other flights going to Bangkok and they weren't delayed. Just my bad luck. That was indeed my flight with the delay.

So with the prospect of needing to spend a night in the airport, what to do? Going back to the lounge was an option, but I realized this was going to be a trap. I could sit here all night and drink wine and eat unlimited food to pass the time. Then perhaps chill out on social media, read some books or whatever. But the amount of calories consumed doing that would double, triple, or even quadruple what I burned on this fitness class excursion that I made such an effort to find and do.

Not only that, the "world's greatest airport" in Qatar may have a lot of facilities but it is unbelievably crowded and noisy. This also applies to the lounges. The one I hung out in for a couple hours was also crowded and full of crying babies. Apparently I wasn't the only one to get a free lounge pass, and it quickly became apparent as to why. Singapore and Dubai have better airports than this.

I did the unthinkable by walking out of the lounge.

The plan was to do a massive airport tour by walking back and forth through all four of the gate wings. In this way I would gather intel as to what this airport *really* had and how it ranked globally. The first thing I noticed, as mentioned, were the sheer crowds and noise. If there was going to be anywhere to sleep in this airport, it would pose a massive challenge. The chairs, as you might expect, are not designed for sleeping and believe me I saw a lot of people trying to get creative. I saw several currency exchange booths, of which the first three were unsuccessful in getting rid of my Rials for Thai baht. Finally I managed. On the plus side there was a massive food court area and plenty of food options in general so you won't be starving here. But as mentioned already, the plan was to lay off the calories and wait until the flight for eating more. Another plus was the massive duty free selection and it wans't all just alcohol either.

It seemed the best place to sleep would be found in Gate C which goes the furthest deep and even has an overhead tram to cut down the walking time. This tram provided a nice source of white noise, and with fewer crowds on the ground this would be the best place to sleep. The mission was so successful, combined with the walk and the fitness class, that I was out cold.

I woke up and saw the sun outside. My first thought was immediate panic: I had overslept the flight departure time even with the delay. Oh shit! I ran off in a random direction, just anywhere to find a screen showing the time. My phone had been powered off ages ago to conserve battery. When you're traveling for 24+ hours straight there's no way it will last that long. I also tried to freshen up in the bathroom and do whatever possible to keep up somewhat of a normal routine. Otherwise it is so easy for the body to get completely off track when things don't go as planned.

The first clock showed 5:30am which meant that I was knocked out cold for over four hours. Honestly, not bad for an airport sleep. But somehow I had to make it back to Gate B which was at least a 15 minute walk. It was made easier by that luggage trolley that I used to put the panniers in plus other bags. Walking around with panniers in general is extremely awkward.

Once back at the gate, they had just called boarding so everything had been timed to perfection. So I boarded the flight with those awkward panniers and threw them in the overhead bin. Thankfully I had pre-booked a window seat which would be needed. I fell asleep again and didn't even remember taxi or takeoff. When I woke up again they were just serving breakfast and I could barely keep my eyes open to understand the choices. Coffee was offered but it didn't help. After the meal I fell asleep again and the guy beside me was nice enought to pass the empty tray back to the attendants while I didn't even notice anything.

I wasn't the only one like this. Once the meal ended, pretty much the entire plane conked out including my seatmates. Apparently this flight QR834 has the worst on time performance of them all. It's so bad they don't even apologize for the delay, and passengers have pretty much factored this in. The only thing is I just wish they would tell you in advance. That way I could have stayed longer in Doha city itself and hit up some nightclubs between the fitness class and before the flight.

Anyways, it happened the way it did. While sleeping in my window seat, I started dreaming that I was all alone on the big open seas, no boat, just massive waves at least 20-30 meters tall and me riding them to wherever. For some reason I wasn't afraid, I would soar up one wave then crash back down, meanwhile I could see ships all around me crashing. Except I did wake up when that last final wave was going to send me right into the rocks.

The whole plane was woken up again by a sudden captain announcement in two words: "Seatbelts! Turbulence!"

I looked at the flight map to see where we were at this exact moment. It was very near the Himalayas, or some of the more mountainous parts of Northern India. At that point, timing with my dream, I felt right away that we were all going to die. This area is known for a fact to have the most severe turbulence in the world, and yes, planes have been known to crash here.

The plane started rolling with the turbulence in such a way I have never experienced before in my life. It wasn't the typical kind that happens in short bursts, these were long rolling changes in altitude, combined with unexpected drops that felt like your seat dropped from under you. I could tell that the captain was trying to descend and turn to find a route out of all this.

Thankfully the turbulence died off a bit but it never really stopped. I realized it wouldn't end fully until we were over Thailand and in the land of peace.

Once the plane finally did enter Thai airspace, all was calm. The plane did a final right turn and landed smoothly at Suvarnabhum airport. We all disembarked and whisked through immigration which is a nice change, it has been know to take hours. Even more amazing was a smile from the officer! This was truly a warm welcome.

I collected all the luggage incuding the bike and got a taxi to my favorite guesthouse where I would recover for quite some time.

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