10 Airports You Might Want to Spend Time in--or Not

Check out this article by traveler Rask Balavoine, on his experience at these 10 airports

Entebbe, Uganda

Dozens of people piled onto the plane when it stopped at Entebbe and they filled every empty seat. Their anxious faces spoke for them, telling stories of fear and horror and weeping, and they were mostly elderly. What sounded like shots rang out from somewhere in the dark and an old man passing along the aisle near me froze, shut his eyes tightly, and held onto the head rest of the seat in front of me. No luggage carts drove out onto the tarmac - no possessions got through the airport that night. When the plane eventually taxied away it felt heavier to me than when it landed bringing a few of us from Dar Es Salaam, more sluggish. At last it gathered momentum as it raced down the runway towards the first traces of dawn, then up into the morning air. That's when the palpable sense of relief poured through the cabin like welcome warm water from a shower in a winter bathroom falling over a shivering body. That was when the weary, worried cargo of Asians knew they were at last clear of Idi Amin and his drunken soldiers.

Chileka Airport, Blantyre, Malawi

It's more of an event, or an entertainment than a purely functional airport; at least it was in the seventies when I last flew out of it. I grew up near it throughout the 60s when about 2 flights a day landed and took off. There was a swimming pool beside the runway with a club house and a bar. That's where we spent Saturdays, and we all ran over to the fence to watch the occasional "plane arrive or leave, and to see who was on it. Thursdays were extra special because that"s when the VC10 arrived with a screech from London. A few hours later it left on the return trip, belching smoke and roaring with all its might to heave itself off the tarmac.More intriguing was the mines "plane, an ancient black and green mottled ex-army DC3 that struggled to lift off with its load of men who were innocently heading off to work the mines in South Africa. These ugly, crazy birds lumbered heavily over the otherwise calm, isolated African bush, incongruous but thought to be progressive. It was a relaxed airport back then. Passengers wandered at will across the tarmac to have a look at the "plane they were about to board, friends sometimes boarded with the passengers to see them settled. There were no night flights so it was possible to run an open air cinema after dark, projecting movies onto the whitewashed wall of the club house, with the sound track booming out into the surrounding bush. That's where I saw Malawi's first screening of the Sound of Music.

Delhi, India

Someone calling herself Mrs Gupta was sitting near us on the plane, and I noticed her pushing her way forward to position herself just beside us as we waited to make our way down the aisle when we landed at Delhi. She was still wearing the orchid everyone was given when we had boarded the Royal Thai plane in Paris (as was Richard) and it looked rather faded (as was Richard).The second last piece of advice Richard's father had given him before the trip (his first time abroad) was “keep your zip up son”. This was so excruciatingly embarrassing that the poor man had to follow through swiftly with the more welcome last piece of advice: “Don't ever carry luggage or even letters for anyone across a border or through customs. You never know what might be in it“.Richard of course said “Yes” to Mrs Gupta when she fluttered her eye lashes at him and asked him to carry a bag through customs. Her explanation was that it just contained some cheap glass table-ware that she had picked up at a second hand market in Paris, but that the Indian customs officials would probably impose a heavy tax on it since they would assume it to be of some greater value. He said yes, and I began to wonder how long it would be before that other piece of advice his father gave him would be forgotten.We got through customs and immigration in no time, but poor Mrs Gupta took TWO HOURS being an Indian national and not a tourist. TWO HOURS we waited to give her that cheap collection of glasses and bowls. At last she emerged looking fraught and hassled from the customs hall. Richard dived over to her, thrusting the bag of glasses and bowls in her direction, but before she could grab it he fell over his own luggage and down went Mrs Gupta's bag with the most splendid smash, sending shards of glass in every direction.

Kasungu, Malawi

It wasn't an airport in 1967, it was an airstrip, and I don't know if it ever developped into anything else. A stretch of green grass, with a few long brown lines on it that were skid marks from the tyres of the few light aircraft that stopped there. There was a 6 seater "plane that landed there once a week on its way up to the north to deliver or collect mail, but no buildings. I was very young and sitting beside the pilot. The view was amazing, Hundreds of feet below Africa lay unspoilt, dotted with villages and patterned with lines of travelling Wildebeeste and Zebra. A little boy"s delight, but there was no toilet. The "plane was only ever in the air for an hour at the most, dipping down momentarily to pick up whatever and there was usually a tree or a clump of bushes the the pilot pulled up beside so that took care of the toilet. At Kasungu though the arrangements were different one day: we couldn"t land. The grass strip which the only place flat enough to land, had been colonised by a herd of elephants. The ambled and lumbered all over the place, not in much of a hurry to move on. That day there were no passengers wanting to get on, and the only person there was a man on a bicycle waiting toi collect a small parcel. He was powerless to move the elephants. The pilot tried a few runs towards the herd kamikaze style, but to no effect: they didn't even look upo. We circled for 15 minutes hoping, but to no avail. We headed on to the next “airport” miles to the north at Mzuzu.

Luton, London

Curious new practice I've noticed flying through London on the way elsewhere (I never stop in London) is the one where men bring bunches of flowers when they are meeting ladies. I first noticed it when I got off an early morning flight from Belfast and I felt a bit embarrassed for the one young man I saw carrying a bouquet. He didn't look embarrassed though, and held the flowers proudly instead of down low behind his back as I would. Maybe he's just a hopeless romantic, one in a million, I thought. Or is it a sign of a guilty conscience? Whatever had he been up to while his lady friend was away? But then I noticed another and then another man, each with a bunch of flowers proudly displayed. Then some more joined the waiting crowd, and before long there were about 20 young men carrying flowers and waiting for people to arrive. It took a while, but then it all became quite clear: they were East Europeans, and that seems to be the way they do things in Poland.

Turin, Italy

I waited. The baggage carousel began to turn and bags began to tumble out onto the rubber mats that swivelled their way round to the other side to disappear behind the plastic flaps to pick up some more bags. Passengers pushed their way to the front to be the first to grab their possessions and I pushed harder than anyone so was best positioned to get out and get away before the rest. The bags kept tumbling, the throng of passengers lessened and the bags began to thin out. Last of all came the awkward shaped items: skis, a cello, prams. I was left on my own after a while, the hall filled with the tired grinding of the empty carousel and then that stopped too. Even the customs man with his sniffer dog turned to go but saw me and obviously thought I was waiting for him to go so that I could slip by, contraband undetected. He stayed on, watching me. I detest those dogs sniffing about me. I'm afraid of dogs at the best of times and I'd rather be searched for drugs any other way but this. But just then dogs were the least of my worries. I had no baggage. I had no baggage. I tried saying it in different ways but it never sounded any less bad, I still had no baggage. Not Turin's fault I must say, the fault of the handlers in London. It took 11 days to find it!!

Moscow, USSR

I didn't know that it was the eve of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; I suppose only the Soviets knew that. Still that was the night I arrived in Moscow from Copenhagen en route for Karachi. I wasn't staying though, just passing through, with 4 hours to kill between flights. There were armed soldiers everywhere but I could see no sign of any civilian travellers and began to wonder if I was in the right place. I searched for a toilet. I hadn't dared try to use the toilet on the journey from Denmark because I was intimidated by the stewardesses who glared suspiciously at every passenger who left their seat. I tried a door which had a steady stream of soldiers going in and out looking like they were going in and out to a toilet and I got that part right, but the view inside was too disconcerting. Along three walls of the enormous bathroom was a continuous, tightly packed row of pairs of naked, white knees belonging to soldiers, trousers at their ankles, rifles by their sides, the air full of light-hearted chat. Toilet paper was being passed from man to man and no-one took any notice of me while I surveyed the scene and decided to wait till I boarded my connecting flight.

Paris, France

Queuing for a cheap flight in terminal 3 in Paris evokes stories I've read about the transportation of Jews, homosexuals and Gypsies to death camps. It's not just Paris of course; it's all airports that have built extra terminals to hive off low-cost passengers from the rest of civilised society. What facilities there are, even for babies who scream continuously, are meagre. Old people, baby-carrying mothers flying with no help, the sick, the bewildered, the lost, the scared, all made to wait in endless queues with no explanation, nowhere to sit, no even a rail or a wall to lean on, not even some cold water to drink.

Quebec, Canada

There was nothing obvious I could do with my hands; nowhere to put them. I used the right one to rub the back of my neck for a while and stuck the left one under my right armpit, then I just folded my arms and watched the two men getting on with their job. They were efficient and courteous and above all methodical, and their pleasant attitude took the oddness and humiliation out of the situation. They were ordinary young men doing what they were paid to do with no real interest in me personally, and they made the entire process seem as routine as a visit to the library, which I appreciate to this day. They chatted between themselves about cars and stuff, leaving me out of the conversation even though I was standing only a few feet in front of them on the other side of the table behind a thick yellow line marked on the floor. I wanted to join in but it would have seemed intrusive, inappropriate. But why not? After all I was young too, 27, no more than a year or two younger than them I guessed. I knew about cars and football and the other things they were talking about and they seemed to be the kind of men I might have started a casual conversation with if we happened to be sitting in a bar on our own. I suppose the main difference between them and me was our clothes: they were wearing all their clothes while I had just taken all mine off and placed them on their table and now they were examining every seam and pocket. The other important difference was that they had seen behind my ears, inside mouth, between my toes, and up my back side, whereas all I had seem of them was their hands and faces. I was being strip searched. They found nothing.

Zurich, Switzerland

I woke and saw lights rushing past the window. We had landed and I had missed the dreaded bump. Snow was everywhere, and as soon as the plane stopped everyone left their seats with their clothes sticking to their legs and backs. Damascus had been fairly warm in the late evening and we knew that Zurich would be cold - so the pilot kept reminding us at various points along the way. Some of us queued along the length of the aisle while the less fortunate people who had been too fussy about fixing themselves up and straightening their clothes were left standing stooped over at their seats, afraid of bumping their heads on the overhead luggage lockers.Time passed and then some more time. The stooped passengers sat back down again and those standing began to wish they hadn't been so hasty about leaving their seats which were now lost to them. An icy draught raced up the cabin when the door opened and everyone got excited. The seated people stood again, still stooped, but expectant. Then the door was closed again and we settled down on seats or arm rests and wondered. The stewards were friendly, moved among us and chatted, not knowing themselves what the hold up was. The stewardesses were uncommunicative, as frosty as the air that had blown briefly inside. An hour passed. An hour and a half. The stewards continued to chat and talked about religion, family, music, history and defused the mounting tension. Rumours traveled up and down the cabin. Airport workers were on strike; the airport was frozen solid and the steps couldn't be moved to the plane till they had thawed; there was thick ice on the tarmac and it was unsafe to walk on; there had been a terrorist attack in the airport. After two hours we were asked to return to our seats. We heard the sound of engines coming to life again. The stewards at the back were in fits of laughter but the stewardesses remained stony-faced and tired. The rumours had been no more than speculation. The truth was that this was Geneva, not Zurich.