I LOVE AIRPORTS. Yes, you read that correctly. Yes, the year is 2011, not 1961. And yes, last time anyone looked, I appeared to be sane. Airports are portals to other places, and ever since I was a child, I have wanted to travel to as many of those places as possible. Years later, and many, many flights later, I still love travel – and airports.
The process of being in transit is part of the thrill of the journey. I never want just to be there, I love the process of getting there. Some of the happiest moments of my life have been en route to an airport, savouring the prospect of the journey ahead. I especially love flights where there are stops for refuelling, or transit, as you get to see an additional airport. The surreality of dropping down for a couple of hours into a different country, culture and climate, as filtered to you through an airport experience, is like being in a miniature country all by itself.
My first long-haul journey, aged 22, involved a fuel stop at Muscat, Oman. I walked stunned from the plane to the airport through heat I had never experienced, staring out at palm trees and desert, and in the tiny duty-free, gazed in amazement at a bejewelled camel’s saddle, on sale for more than I had ever seen a material object being sold for.
You see extraordinary things at airports. In Rangoon, writing my diary and waiting for a flight, I looked up and noticed the hands of the lady sitting next to me. She had six fingers on her left hand; two little fingers. All I could think of was Anne Boleyn. I looked to my other side to avoid staring at the hand, and saw, on the right hand of the lady sitting on my other side, six fingers; two little fingers. It was one of the oddest coincidences of my life.
At Amsterdam’s Schipol, myself and two friends sat between flights at a sushi counter for an hour or more. The entire time, one of the two chefs sharpened and tested, sharpened and tested the same knife with exquisite care. In Charles de Gaulle, I saw a woman in fur with a Siamese cat on a lead, walking briskly to the check-in. At Heathrow, a medic hurried past me, carrying a small box with “human eyes for transplant” all over it. At Cancun, en route to Cuba, I watched astonished as the line of people in front of me checked in baggage on a scale I’d never seen before: it included washing machines, fridges, armchairs and at least one sofa. At Dhaka airport, leaving Bangladesh, I saw a poster from the country’s tourist board:“Visit Bangladesh – Before Tourists Come”.
Whether at airports for work or leisure, I love the fact you are sharing a space with people, who like yourself, will shortly be suspended in the air. I love the departures boards, with their destination names, and the endless possibilities they excite in the imagination. Flight is something I never take for granted. It’s an experience none of my grandparents had – and less than five per cent of the world’s population have ever been on a plane.
What of the recent enforced delays at security, the screening, the shoes off, belts off, laptop out, no liquids? Lo, I confirm I am human after all. I do not like this experience. And even security has provided me with a uniquely comedic moment. At Gatwick, not long after the no-liquids rule was enforced, I had discarded what remained of my bottle of water, but kept the sandwich. “What kind of sandwich is that?” the security person barked.
The journalist in me had to ask why it mattered. “Some sandwiches are forbidden. Nothing with mayonnaise. No egg, prawn, coronation chicken. They could be dangerous. They could have explosives concealed in them.”
I was temporarily rendered hysterical with laughter.