The return from Dhaka

In many ways, the ending is so often like the start and so it was, sort of, when leaving Dhaka.

I arrived at the airport at 0630 as suggested for my 0830 flight to be greeted by lots of people waiting in lines. Previous experience told me that these were not queues in the sense of being one after another [1] [These are called serials in modern Bengali.] but they were all waiting to pass the security to enter the airport building. Dhaka Airport does not, normally, allow non-passengers into the airport terminal so there is a wait to get in and people saying goodbye outside. Once my cousin had cleverly found the queue for foreign passports, labelled as the “staff entrance”, I was able to get in after a little wait and only a few people pushing in front. 

Once past the security scanner, I could not see any signs so I walked forward as far as I could and saw that my check-in desk was B. I had no idea where I, or that, was so took a guess to go left and found D. I kept going until I found a queue that seemed to be for Qatar but I asked to check.

"No, this is to Dubai",

I checked with someone else and it was to Doha when I asked them. I chanced it and waited in line as it was heading to the Qatar Air counters - and it was actually a line as there was a woman telling passengers which desk to go to and giving them the departure card to fill in. This was relatively organised although the line still moved slowly and it had taken me 30 mins to get to the back of the line - so it was 0700. The desks themselves were a little bit of a scrum but then as I got closer, the woman just walked off. She didn't return, nobody replaced her and the queue stood still. It was about 0730 at this point and the guy in front would not move without her say so (he seemed a little worried so was unlikely to be a regular traveller) and the desks were not empty anyway. Someone else moved and then so then did I to the desks. Here, they spent quite a long time weighing the bags and talking so I got there at 0740. I explained to the desk that I would like a window seat and that I had tried online check-in but the mobile app was stopping (as had happened before). He admonished me for not being there at 0630 to which I said that I had come at 0630 and then he said I was lucky to be getting on at all - this with a fairly large line still to be checked in. Lucky? He then weighed my bags and told me to go to immigration quickly, which I did. He did not listen to my request at all.

Dhaka airport is all about regular micro-aggressions and it is tiresome. It is really tiresome. After the pushing and shoving to enter the airport itself, the queue for immigration was short but, of course, not without its own micro-aggressions as a few people pushed in front again to present passports to the officials to be allowed into the passport control. As I reached the front, again, a couple of people came in front of me and as the second was being checked, I said "What is this?" in English. The passenger in front ignored me with his sense of entitlement but the official actually saw this and stopped checking and checked mine instead and told the guy that he'd pushed in. It was a small victory, but you have to take them. Micro-victories are better than none.

Getting into the foreigners' queue for passports, it was quite short and orderly, but of course, this changed when someone pushed in and then when I was called, the official decided to split the line into two for reasons of apparent inefficiency - it was inexplicable. 

My gate was at the opposite side to check-in necessitating a walk across the terminal which seemed a little underplanned for such a small airport. I'm not sure why you wouldn't put the gate nearer the desk when you have so few gates and desks but it might be to appreciate the architectural features. Unlikely, but possible. Sensing a pattern, I assumed at the gate that there would be a queue for some security at which some people would push in front and I was not disappointed. Well, I was still a little bit disappointed but not surprised. Here, I was asked by a man with combat fatigues to take my belt off and keep it separate along with my wallet, phone and laptop. As I got the security belt, another man told me to put it all in the bag. He did this as the other man was telling everyone loudly enough, to separate them. I just wanted to get through so I followed the instructions of whoever was closest...

Not bothering to wait at the gate, I walked through to the plane and the noise made me desire the blissful separation of some headphones. There were a lot of mobile phone conversations taking place and at volumes that were not exactly trying to be discreet. It may be a little unfair to keep commenting on the microaggressions but it really does make a not particularly pleasant journey type even worse when it is not smooth either.

The flight itself was not too eventful but it felt long as I was tired but it wasn't really comfortable enough to sleep (I was also sat somewhere with a little less legroom as the seat in front had the entertainment system under it) so I didn't. I had a single serving next to me but not a friend by any stretch of the imagination. I did have headphones though.

Doha was a quick stop as it was only a little over an hour before the next leg so I pretty much transferred directly to the gate whereupon I was told that my seat had changed again. There were plenty of children travelling, apparently, and so I had been moved from an aisle seat to the worst kind of seat - the middle of a three so no window and no aisle and the engine noise too. And plenty of children.

London was not too faraway now and although my time in Bangladesh had overall been a delight, the flight back seemed wholly appropriate.