Day 17: Bangkok

The next day more buddhist temples...

Our trip back to Finland was a small story in itself. I don't have any photos of it, though, because it consisted mostly of boring waiting at airports, and the really interesting parts happened in zones where photographing was prohibited.

The most interesting thing happened at the Beijing airport. Our flight was not direct from Bangkok to Helsinki, but we had to change to another plane at Beijing (in the same way as when we started the trip). The switch was most unusual there.

Usually when you have to switch planes in an international airport, you simply keep all the time in the international zone of the airport and just walk from one gate to another and that's it. Not so at Beijing.

At Beijing we had to actually check in into the country! Without a valid visa! (We had a visa for our first trip to Beijing, but it was a one-entry only visa. We didn't have any valid visa for a second entry.) For whatever reason they let people in the country without a valid visa if all they do is to switch to another plane. (But one could justly as why.)

So we were several hours in the territory of China without a valid visa, which should be required to be in that country. We could have just walked out of the airport and into the city if we wanted. There was nothing restricting us.

Getting into the international zone again was an adventure in itself due to the overly paranoid security check. I had a can or root beer in my backback (for those who don't know, regardless of the name root beer is a non-alcoholic soda drink) and I had to drink it at the security check. Later we saw a small girl who had to drink a can of juice there.

I understand security checks. What I don't understand is that drink thing. What's the point? I had in my backpack a small bottle of mosquito repellent but that seemingly didn't cause any concern, only the soda drink did. If anything, the mosquito repellent could be a lot more "dangerous" than a soda.

Anyways, here's a last photo: Some things I bought for myself during the trip:

A wooden dragon statue, a wooden puzzle (you have to crate a cube) and a xiao flute (or at least that's what it claims to be).