A post in praise of the smell of hot Tarmac...

...and exhaust fumes and hundreds of slightly sweaty taxi drivers. Yes really; that wave of sultry possibilities that smacks you like a wave when you walk out of an airport. Its easy to dismiss it, just part of the necessary business of getting from A to B, but not to revel a little in the grimily-humid atmosphere is to miss a world of beginnings, of journeys starting, of handshakes and awkward greetings and adventures beginning to unfold.

Every airport does it differently; the crawling lines of yellow cabs at JFK with the taxi booker barking at bewildered tourists to get into cabs; the ripples of tour buses softened by waves of bougainvillea in the coach park at Dalaman.   Or ski airports, Salzburg or Innsbruck, where the chug of exhaust fumes is softened by crisp air and greying piles of snow. This afternoon the cement strip and parking lots outside Bangkok airport heaved with the usual mix; a neat row of candy coloured taxis, squat grey minibuses purring quietly, waiting in line; gleaming Mercedes, approached by silver-haired gents and stiffly-coiffed ladies clack-clacking across the Tarmac in their gilt-edged sling backs.

It struck me on the plane out that, ironically, those of us who write about travel for a living rarely write about exactly that - the travelling. All too often these days it's dismissed as the annoying bit, the getting there - as if the destination itself is all that matters. But the journey, I think, should be enjoyed too - or little moments of it - times when you step back and look at the (literally) hundreds of people in the passport queue in front of you, or milling around on the sticky airport Tarmac and go wow, we are a world on the move, all the time. We take travel for granted I think, but it's a magical, amazing thing.

Of course it's annoying and frustrating and boring too. And maybe by the time I'm five flights down I won't be waxing lyrical about airport forecourts.  I guess you've got to hope so, or this may become the worlds most boring blog. So in order to pep things up, here's a picture of the Bangkok skyline. I know, it's not that great, or exciting...but then sometimes you just have to work with what you've got ....

...or not. Seems my spangly Bangkok skyline pic won't load.  Just imagine lots of shiny tall buildings and teensy cars jam packed below, crawling along. There'll be a photo next time, honest.