Friday, June 17, 2011

Check In Weirdo


(PICTURE: Air Asia flight attendants.)

If you've flown Air Asia before, you know that they are famous for having very beautiful flight attendants. In fact, I'm pretty sure they hire girls from modeling agencies to just walk around the Bangkok airport in Air Asia uniforms. I kid you not, there were a dozen Air Asia girls walking around the check-in area like runway models. Anyway, the girl who checked us in for our India flight was not one of those girls. She could have been very attractive but she was wearing a clown-level amount of make-up (I guess it is easy to get a complex when all your coworkers are hot). For me, paint-level amounts of make-up is an immediate sign that someone has some issues, probably not so hidden. This was confirmed when Huyen and I checked in. The girl took our passports and examined them for like five minutes. She did this in not so much a this-is-my-job way but rather a I'm-stoned-out-of-my-mind way. With bug eyes she looked over each page and after a couple of minutes said, "Your name should be Benjamin April because you're born in April." I smiled at her and I think said, "Well my father is born in August." Then she began to stare at our passports again and said, "You're going to India?". We nodded. She then looked completely perplexed, as if contemplating the creation of the universe, and added, "What's there to see in India?" I thought about handing her my guide book or a copy of Slumdog Millionaire (which I still think is over rated) but instead said, "I'll tell you next time I see you." To this she added a, "Yeahhhhhhhhhh."

After another couple of minutes she handed us our boarding passes and we backed away from the counter. Huyen and I both immediately turned to each other and started to giggle and slightly mock the girl. Well, perhaps we shouldn't have mocked her because for the first two weeks or so of our trip we basically hated India. Sure we had fun because we're together but both of us keep thinking that maybe we should have taken the clownish Air Asia girl more seriously.

I'm writing this post at the halfway point of our trip and my fingers are crossed that things will get better. For now though, bare with me on some slightly negative (and hopefully funny) posts.