I arrived at the normal terminal as I used the train to go to the airport and anyway checked in there. At the counter, the staff gave me a pass to the first class "lounge" but I asked her about the terminal with very indirect speaking like "Well, I heard you have a nice terminal for the first class passengers." And she assured me I can use the terminal if I don't mind going there on foot for 10 minutes. I don't mind it at all of course. Without the luggage, 10 minutes waking is the same as nothing.

It was bit difficult to find the building though, finally I arrived there. In front of the building I couldn’t find anyone around but a person in charge came to me immediately after using the intercom. According to her, they didn’t really think about people who walked from the main terminal as the visitors usually use their own cars or taxis. Well, the reason is so plausible that I couldn't blame their assumption.

In order to enter the building, I had to pass the departure procedure as it was a terminal of a sort. Nevertheless, once the personal assistant took my passport, what I had to do was only passing the security gate. Although there was only one gate available, basically there are few visitors there and no queues. After that, the assistant offered me a guided tour around the terminal and I decided to go with her.

Incredibly, the shower room had a decent bath tub. What's more, the shower booth and the tub were completely separated and the room was spacious enough as though I can make my living there. In terms of amenities, the sets of Etro's mini bottles looked very luxurious while there are usually big bottles attached to the booth in the other terminals. Besides, you can enjoy the tub with a duck. I couldn't recall when I'd had such a gorgeous bath time before this.

After getting refreshed with the bath, of course it was the time for the meals. Prosciutto, salmon, shrimp cocktail, it seemed like a buffet table at a luxurious hotel. How come there are more than one kind of prosciuttos? I reckon the volume and luxuriousness of this terminal far surpassed the other places I ever stayed before. Although I had no time to order the real course menu, I was quite satisfied with the delicious finger foods and exquisite sweets.

When the boarding time came, I had a chance to use a limousine service as the first class terminal is located far from the normal gate. Though there are many luxurious German cars such as Mercedes S class, surprisingly a Porsche Cayman came to me since presumably I was quite young and they brought a cool sport car. Of course, this was the first time to get into a Porsche. Maybe the car wasn’t customized for sports driving too much and it was quite comfortable in the passenger seat. Though there was only a 5 minute drive it was a very exciting moment indeed.

The aircraft was not really impressive as it was just a middle distance haul but the quality of their service was quite high. Especially, I loved the chocolate after the dinner. As a chocoholic, I had been already captivated by the chocolates in this area. I'm very much looking forward to the next long visit there at this summer. Despite some troubles before this day, all in all I was satisfied with the trip with Lufthansa.

At last, I arrived at Cairo. Though I'd already visited Dubai, as the city was bit special, I should say the trip around Middle East finally began. This 2 month trip from Egypt to Turkey on land would become the most backpacker-like trip in my whole route.

Well, I arrived at Dubai but as always had no ideas what to do there. Questioned to the front desk about any interesting places around the area, they suggested going to Dubai Mall and I made a go for it. Though Dubai's prices are as high as Japan's, the taxi fare was not too bad. It cost about 20 AED (6 USD approx.) for 20 minutes driving. The buildings seen through the taxi's window looked like the world from Sim City.

Dubai Mall is the biggest shopping mall in Dubai and it seemed to me looking similar to some Japanese top level shopping complex like Roppongi Hills. However the scale of Dubai Mall is much grander than the Japanese ones. Walking through the whole complex in a day would be very challenging as it has movie theatres, an ice skating rink and even an aquarium. Although "Dubai Shock" is a buzz word in these days, the economic situation in the mall looked good and there are so many visitors from all over the world as well as local Arabic people.

Once I went out from the mall, an astoundingly high building appeared in my sight. Burj Khalifa (which used to called Burj Dubai during the construction) is by far the tallest building of the world. Though it has been completed the main construction, the working at outskirts were still in progress. The building has more than 800 meter height with 200 floors and in other words it is three times higher than Tokyo Midtown which is the highest building in Tokyo. My iPhone camera finally couldn't capture the whole building. However, I really enjoyed photo shooting since I'd expected this situation and brought a tripod with wide angle lenses. Although I had to concentrate hard not to accidentally capture any passersby, I suppose I did take some nice ones.

By the way, I was actually thinking about the politics in Dubai. Dubai is the one of United Arab Emirates; namely it is a country of Arabian Kings. I had to rethink about autocracy even though I studied at Japanese education system which worships democracy. In a way, autocracy actually has its merit.

The kings at Middle East are born as super rich and brought up with kingcraft educations. As they are always thinking about how to make their countries, which are literary owned by the kings, more prosperous, their visions towards the future of the countries are very clear. Dubai is making a big airport and office complexes in order to be a centre of the international business and Abu Dhabi the chief of UAE has been investing an astronomical amount of money into clean energy technologies for the post oil era. They are totally different from the politicians selected by popularity polls, holding back each other and ending up with cheap lavishing politics. It is said that too many cooks spoil the broth and maybe a strong leadership could make things better.

I know these aggressive investments of the Middle East countries are based on the rich oil money but maybe we can still learn a lot of things from them.

The hostel is located at the old city area which is surrounded by many temples and it took about 20 minutes to Khao San Street on foot. Actually there are a lot of hostels near Khao San but the area is very noisy as Khao San is a very busy street. On the other hand, Niras Bankoc is situated at a quiet local area and we wouldn’t be bothered by any noises. However, the location could be only one minor point as well because so local is the hostel situated that no taxi drivers are able to find there. I suppose taxi drivers in Bangkok don't know about the roads well but anyway you must keep a guide map to the hostel which is provided at the reception.

I always use hostelworld.com to find hostels because it's actually not really popular in Japan. In other words few Japanese would stay at hostels from the site. As I expected, Niras Bankoc had visitors mainly from Europe and I rarely saw Asians there. This made me feel like I was in a foreign country. However, very surprisingly the owner of the hostel can speak Japanese reasonably well. According to him, he used live in Japan as an exchange student for a year. He said to me that he would like to have more Japanese visitors there.

In terms of the quality of the rooms, I totally agreed with the reviews. I stayed in a 4 bed dorm room which was not really big but I was sure the room was absolutely safe and clean. I guess most of the visitors, who prefer staying in a rather quiet hostel, are actually polite and friendly. And the building was spotlessly clean. In Thailand, where the idea of sanitation doesn't really exist, the cleanness of the hostel was notable.

I must also mention the café on the first floor.. The photo on the top of this entry is there and it has a very modern Asian style. On the hot days I stayed in Bangkok, I always ordered big green tea frappe and sat on the chair for long time. Besides there is free Wi-Fi available for the hostel's visitors and you can use the Internet as much as you want if you have your own laptop. Actually, I wrote a lot of this blog there.

The price tag of 500 baht approx. is quite expensive compared with the Bangkok's market price. However, Niras Bankoc, which refers to itself as a Boutique Hostel and receives many good reviews, was absolutely accommodating and worth the extra cost. Highly recommended.