We changed planes in Hong Kong two years ago and expected the experience in Chengdu to be similar. It wasn’t.
First, the plane parked at a remote location with no skyway and we had to walk down a long metal staircase and get on a bus. No big deal. But the bus traveled, I estimate, over 3 miles to deliver us to the international arrivals terminal. Very strange. Doubly strange as this airport (Tianfu) is new, huge (larger than Chicago O’Hare I think) and underutilized. There were many available gates. Very odd.
Next we had to pass through a “temperature check” portal where our luggage was run through an X-ray machine. Then we had to fill out a “temporary visa” application and stand in line for about 40 minutes to be processed. And we only learned about the need for a temporary visa after finding someone in the terminal who could speak rudimentary English and let us know what to do. Very disorganized.
The guy who processed our application must have been a trainee. First he wanted us to confirm that we were traveling to Thailand – which is how he read our boarding pass. After we said, no, we are traveling to Rome he then accused us of giving him a boarding pass for our arrival at Tianfu. Idiot. Working at immigration at the airport and couldn’t even read a boarding pass.
Next we had to figure out where to go. I expected that we would stay within the secure area and just wait for our plane (a 20-hour wait, but we were expecting that and didn’t mind), but we had to exit the secure area and would have to go back through security again to board our flight to Rome. Annoying. Especially with almost no sleep.
But my phone had service! I guess the tech guy in Sydney was right – my phone was too old to handle the cell phone frequency in Sydney. But it works fine in China and hopefully will continue to work fine in Europe. But knowing that there are places in the world where my phone will be useless means that I had better think about upgrading when I get home.
We spent the 20 hours in the terminal playing cards (yes, Marlene beat me again, of course) and napping. The good news was that this HUGE terminal was basically empty and there were many soft sofa-like seating areas where we could stretch out. The bad news was, according to a McDonald’s employee (yes, there was a McDonald’s in the terminal), that there was NO SHOPPING anywhere in the terminal – a major disappointment for Marlene who enjoyed the mall-like experience in Hong Kong. There were a few restaurants, including Starbucks and McDonalds. We had coffee in the morning at McDonald’s. Their coffee was very strong. We needed it.
This area is famous for pandas and the terminal had a huge panda statue. Of course we had to take a photo with it.
We had a late lunch at a fast food joint where I ordered kung pao chicken and a Snowflake beer – the most popular beer in the world. The beer was a slightly sweet version of PBR. Nothing special. The kung pao, however, was terrific.
I tried to use the bathroom and was shocked to discover that the “fixture” in the men’s room was a hole in the floor. I haven’t seen that since 1975 in rural France. I passed in favor of the unisex bathroom that had modern fixtures.
The People’s Republic of China takes airport security seriously. Besides the annoying customs process, the terminal had LOTS of visible police. Even a SWAT team. Lots of police for few passengers.
We went through security AGAIN around 10pm and were surprised to discover that, contrary to the statements of the McDonald’s employee earlier in the day, there was, indeed, shopping within the secured area. Not as much as in Hong Kong, but a handful of duty-free shops and quite a few restaurants and small stores. We did some window shopping – we could have gotten some Chinese cigarettes for about $25 per carton- but bought nothing.
I noticed a smoking area (for people using those cheap cigarettes, I guess) and was impressed with the area. Most smoking areas in terminals are reminiscent of a prison or a school cafeteria. This one was very nice. And outdoors so not very smoky.
The flight left on time. Rome tomorrow.