SUVARNABHUMI AIRPORT, BANGKOK

Early this year, I visited Thailand after twelve years and of course, Thailand has grown to be a booming metropolis.

Entrance to Thailand is through the Suvarnabhumi Airport, which is the new airport and for me, it is a very impressive airport because it is clean, massive but still easy to go around to inspite of the "worm-like" writings which we of course, could not understand. Basic translations are available.

This is what is written about the Suvarnabhumi Airport from the internet.

Suvarnabhumi Airport (Thai: ท่าอากาศยานสุวรรณภูมิ, pronounced [sù.wān.nā.pʰūːm]) (IATA: BKK, ICAO: VTBS) (meaning 'Golden Land' in Sanskrit), also known as (New) Bangkok International Airport, is one of twointernational airports serving Bangkok, Thailand. The other one is Don Mueang International Airport.^[2][3]

Suvarnabhumi was officially opened for limited domestic flight service on 15 September 2006, and opened for most domestic and all international commercial flights on 28 September 2006.^[4]

The airport is currently the main hub for Thai Airways International, Bangkok Airways, Orient Thai Airlines, and Thai AirAsia [until 30 September 2012]. It also serves as regional gateway and connecting point for various foreign carriers.

The airport is located in Racha Thewa in Bang Phli district, Samut Prakan Province, about 25 kilometres (16 mi) east of downtown Bangkok. The name Suvarnabhumi was chosen by King Bhumibol Adulyadej and refers to the golden kingdom hypothesised to have been located somewhere in Southeast Asia.

The building was designed by Helmut Jahn of Murphy / Jahn Architects. It was constructed primarily by ITO JV. The airport has the world's tallest free-standing control tower (132.2 metres / 434 feet), and the world's fourth largest single-building airport terminal (563,000 square metres / 6,060,000 square feet).

Suvarnabhumi is the sixth busiest airport in Asia, and the busiest in the country, having handled 47.9 million passengers in 2011,^[1] and is also a major air cargo hub, with a total of 96 airlines. On social networks, Suvarnabhumi is the world's second most popular place where Instagram photographs were taken in 2011.^[5]

Most of all, there is so much of Thai culture and art seen all over the airport that you can definitely identify that you are in Thailand.

I couldn't feel this in any other airport, whether, it is in the NAIA (Manila), Heathrow (London), Charles De Gaulle or CDG (Paris), Fiumicino (Rome) or more so in the US. 

Chek Lap Kok or HKIA (Hong Kong) and Changi (Singapore) are new and beautiful with flowers and greens.

Incheon (Seoul), Osaka (Japan), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) and Dubai (UAE) also have impressive airports but do not have as much Culture embedded in their airports as much as Suvarnabhumi!

At the arrival area, there are lots of orchids and murals and even a pagoda!

and my purple shirt matches their motif!

note the purple benches!

 

 

 

Just outside the arrival area, at the baggage area, this is what we see.

At the departure area, we are welcomed by huge murals of the activities of the King because it was his birthday season = = I saw it was placed last December 2011 but we were there end of February 2012 so I don't know how long they will leave this there. 

these murals show the King in his hobbies like sailing, photography, music and others

Inside, it is not only murals and orchids, there are also huge monuments!

This is the monument. It is so massive that I couldn't get a picture of the whole thing in one screen!

Add caption

The front part

the tail

At the waiting area, the color of the benches was pink.

An observation we noted last February 2012 was that we had to go through immigration for more than an hour since there was no clear queue and there were so many people. There seems to be a line but at the end of the line was a bottleneck of two or three lines.
A physically challenged senior citizen on wheelchair in business class really complained because he said that inspite of the priority lane, they finished after 2 hours.
In fact, we waited for several people because they were delayed at the immigration and had to run all the way to the plane.

This August, the lines were very much shorter and everything was now organized and one can go through immigration in 15 to 20 minutes.

So glad they solved their problems!

The only problem with the airport is that it is so large, so better come early so you don't have to run from one place to the other end. And follow the signs and numbers, also so you don't have to walk back and forth.

This is important especially if you have a tax refund, because you have to ask where the first form has to be given before check-in and then, inside after the check-in counter where claiming of the refund is located.

This is a really unique and beautiful airport!