My next motorcycle trip is supposed to start today. This time I want to travel to Southeast Asia. But at the moment all wheels are standing still and I haven't even covered the first kilometer. Frankfurt Airport has been in the media several times in recent months because of its desolate ground handling. I've been lucky on my travels so far and haven't noticed anything. But today it hits me twice and three times. I'm flying to Bangkok via Taipei with China Airlines. At check-in in Frankfurt's Terminal 2, I didn't even have to wait five minutes and everything was taken care of.
The next hurdle was the federal police and the passport control to leave the country. It took me a while just to find the end of the change that meandered over a hundred meters from the automatic border control through the upper floor of the terminal.
But that went faster than I feared and after half an hour I was through.
The security check was much more lengthy. Just two scanners were planned for four international flights. The queue only ended in the terminal aisle. Again and again there were riots because people pushed ahead to get their plane. I waited patiently for an hour and was rewarded not only by the body scanner but also by two women in a separate booth. This time they wanted to know enough and let my hiking boots run through the X-ray machine again. My power bank was also up for debate and it was said that I might not be allowed to take it with me. With batteries with a capacity of more than 30,000 milliamps, each airline decides for itself whether to leave the power banks on board. China Airlines allowed it. Although I was at the airport three hours before departure, I didn't reach the departure gate until half an hour before departure.
I didn't have to rush though, because boarding didn't start until we were supposed to. When all the passengers were on board, the plane didn't move a meter for an hour and a half. The flight attendants donated water and apple juice. Nothing more happened. Finally, the announcement was heard that the plane was broken and we all had to get off again. We then sat back at the gate in the waiting area for more than four hours. At least there was half a ham and cheese sandwich and a can of coke on the house. I was back on board six hours after the actual departure.
The connecting flight in Taipei to Bangkok has long been unreachable and a whole day in the Thai capital, where I wanted to visit friends there, is wasted. I am also curious whether my luggage with my motorcycle equipment and helmet will fly to Bangkok on the same plane as me and whether we will meet there. Otherwise it will be stressful and I may have to spend even more time waiting.
I wanted to make this trip as flexible as possible and I didn't pre-book anything except for the first two nights in Bangkok. But I didn't expect that my flexibility would be largely exhausted right from the start. At least I used the time wisely to look for other exciting tour stations on the first section of my motorcycle trip through Thailand's west and transfer them to my offline map.
