So after four outstanding days in Perth, it was time to head back. I felt a little perturbed in that I was returning the car to Hertz a couple of days short of the free week I had with my points, but really, free is free.
After returning the car, which was a thoroughly painless affair, I headed over to the check-in area. As I did so, I noticed my path was blocked by an oddly positioned row of chairs. Further investigation revealed that the chairs had been hastily arranged as a perimeter around a small area no more than maybe 8m by 8m. In the centre of the area, on the floor, was the dreaded unattended bag. A policeman studiously guarded the gap in the corner between two sets of chairs, and I looked around for signs of further activity. There was none, and over the next 3 minutes, there was no hint of any to come.
Welcome to Perth, ladies and gentlemen. So far removed from the world that in truth, there was absolutely no chance of there being anything more dangerous than someone’s used underwear in the bag. And clearly I wasn’t alone in my opinion, because nobody else was bothered by this, least of all the constabulary. Not, I hasten to add, because this was a commonplace occurrence, but because I’m quite sure that the thought of danger never crossed anyone’s mind.
With this major drama failing to keep me captivated, I went on to the Thai check-in counter. Again, this is Perth. Anything beyond checking you in for the turbo-prop to Kalgoorlie tends to feel like an extraordinary effort, and today was no exception.
The young lady checking me in was very sweet, but it was her first week on the job. My routing was PER-BKK-CDG-MUC-SFO, and she had an absolute nightmare trying to check me in and get my bags checked all the way through. She consulted the manual, and finally her scrawled notes from her training the previous week, and still couldn’t get it sorted. I asked if I could help, but I think she was too embarrassed to admit that there was something wrong, as if it wasn’t rather obvious.
She called over her supervisor, who in turn called over his supervisor. Score one for the bureaucratic hierarchy there! They had trouble to, and none of them could (or would) explain to me exactly what the problem was as they kept trying different character permutations. “Try a 0 before the / or maybe do the 0 after the /” was the nature of the conversation.
Eventually the supervisor decided that he would do some sort of manual override and force-create bag tags for my journey. Two of them, to cover the 4 segments, because he couldn’t get 4 onto one tag (a challenge that I’ve dealt with before).
And then he told me that he couldn’t print out my onward boarding passes because my connection from BKK was on another airline, and the system was only able to print out boarding passes for TG flights. I politely pointed out at this point that there was a big TG 930 from BKK-CDG clearly visible on the luggage tags. To his credit, he conceded the point without further ado, and went back to work.
All told, I was at the check in counter for a little over half an hour (I make a point of noting the time in PER because of the almost mandatory problems at check-in). I walked away with my bags tagged to SFO, but only two boarding passes, taking me through to CDG. I figured that really wasn’t too much to worry about, but I can imagine that an infrequent flier would have been rather concerned. Then again, an infrequent flyer would not be flying from PER to SFO via BKK, CDG and MUC.
It was only long after I had left the check in counter that I noticed on the boarding pass that my seat had mysteriously changed from a bulkhead window to a window in the last row of the cabin. But there was no way I was going back!
TG uses the QF lounge in PER, which was a pleasant enough experience as I’d only ever seen the inside of the small SQ lounge before. It was spacious enough, and quite empty, but the food offerings were pretty mediocre.
A short while later, I looked up at the monitor and noticed that the flight was boarding and we were just a short way away from departure. I had been told that there would be an announcement in the lounge, but I figured i had missed it so I gathered my stuff and headed over to the gate.
The doors were shut when I got there, but given the large crowd in the vicinity I was pretty sure there was no reason to worry. I went up to the counter, and was told that the flight was delayed by about half an hour, and boarding wouldn’t start for another 20 minutes or so.
So back to the lounge I went, where I noticed that the monitor was now showing that the gate was closed. I asked the gent at the front desk about that, and he pretty much sighed knowingly, which got my curiosity piqued. It transpires that in good old Perth, the data fed to the monitors is all based on the published schedules. Apparently, there is no way to make an adjustment. A few minutes later, the monitors were showing that my flight had departed. Absolute genius this, and yet just so possible in Perth. (by the way, I do love the city!)
My usual ride from PER-SIN
Eventually got on board, and I’m afraid to say that once again, I have very little of significance to report about the flight. The seats were similar to the SQ regional C ones, but not the same, and not quite as good with respect to storage, styling or comfort. One thing that TG does well across the board though is their tables - solid as a rock once again.
The meal was along the same lines - very solid, but never even hinting that it might be something special. I mean, steamed beans, steamed carrots and steamed white rice? If I can cook it in 7 minutes in the microwave at home, it doesn’t really count as food. The cheese and crudites platter was equally mediocre - the dried carrot reminiscent of those you would see on a US airline. And as for the eclair that was served for dessert - well, it looked really good, I’ll give it that much.
As a result, I ate pretty quickly, mostly because I didn’t eat a huge amount, and settled down for a nap. I slept better than I expected, managing almost 2 hours. WIthout sliding down the seat once - I’ve just never had that problem, even with the old SQ spacebeds.
With the delay, it was going to be a tight connection, and I had no hope of a massage unless the onward connection was delayed as well. We parked at a remote stand, as I had anticipated with Perth not being quite the premium point of origin, and descended via air stairs. I hadn’t really considered it, but it was great to see a board with my name on it as I exited the aircraft, and I was ushered onto a van with an elderly couple.
The handling was seamless - the van deposited us at the arrivals entrance, and my escort (maybe I should use a different term what with this being BKK...) was waiting. A quick buggy ride later I was in the F lounge, where I got to spend an incredible 10 minutes or so before having to head out to my gate for the flight to CDG. Disappointing, but I was cautiously excited about my first suite experience just ahead.
The South Asian aversion to wing mirrors has spread and is alive and kicking at BKK - note that it's as if someone has made a point of removing the mirror itself