Three weeks in training Part I

I knew I was a potential candidate for a training course on Network Security for more than a few months, but our bureaucratic efficiency shows itself in the fact that my confirmation came just two days before the date of departure, after ticket and visa. But it did come and I got to fly. It was a great flight, very stable and nice, although it was raining around Kathmandu. Weather got much better after Janakpur, mainly because the plane was now flying over 28000 ft in altitude. Bulks of clouds below looked really nice. Unfortunately, though, I set my camera for two stops under exposure and forgot later to set it back. Some of the plane pictures came really dark. Anyway, since I did not take too many pictures from the plane, it was not too bad.

When we landed, something struck me really hard. Bangkok Intl’ Airport has two parallel runways – 03L – 21R and 03R – 21L, separated by about 380m. And between the two runways is what should be world’s noisiest golf course. I wonder who plays there! Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of that. It was too dark when we landed. That was day one at Bangkok, and we had to drive about 40 km north, to AIT.

AIT is a nice little place, but for us who have thought it would be enormous, let me just say it isn’t as big as we would think. And because buildings are well hidden among forest, it looks much smaller than it actually is. All the buildings are about 3-4 story high and not that impressive looking. As a matter of fact, I was shocked to see such a small facility. Next few days gave me another shock – just opposite the main entrance of AIT is Rangsit campus of Thammasat University. And that university is big. Big with big buildings and big area with big sports facility and everything.

Anyway, the night was spent in AIT Conference Centre, in a nice hotel room.

That evening we had our dinner in the hotel restaurant, and was it expensive, almost spent all of that day’s daily allowance in it. The next day was formal opening ceremony. In that event, we were introduced to fellow participants from Bhutan, Mr. Fazle Karim, Program Director, Ms. Maria Soccoro G. Fontanilla a.k.a. Cookie, Course co-ordinator, Mr. Kuldeep Nagi, Instructor, and finally Ms. Pattama Chaiyapan a.k.a. Pat. Pat took us through AIT premises showing places of importance where we would be spending time in AIT. Then she took us to AIT Extension building where we would have our class. One thing that I noticed was that AIT buildings are located inside all natural environment – lots of wild animals inside the premises.

There’s not much to report on the classes. Day in and day out we’d follow the path of the Golden Triangle: hotel room – class – cafeteria. For two days we tried the hotel breakfast. I found I had nothing to eat other than some fruits and two pieces of bread. Third day onwards, we cancelled the breakfast. Our routine was scheduled something like this: 8:30 – 10:00 first session (theoretical discussion), 10:00 – 10:30 coffee break, 10:30 – 12:00 second session (theoretical discussion), 12:00 – 13:30 lunch break, 13:30 – 15:00 third session (practical and self study class), 15:00 – 15:30 second coffee break, 15:30 – 16:30 fourth session (practical and self study class). But I’d usually wake up at 8:30/9:00 and always late. I’d get to class around 8:45 without anything for breakfast. After the sessions, I’d still be in class till 20:00 when I’d go to have some dinner.

After dinner, I’d go straight back to class and stay there till 00:00 sometimes even later. May be because of the coffee (I was doing something like 8-10 cups a day), I was not very sleepy before midnight, and I’d not sleep until 2 in the morning. It was quite fun working like that, with that much of coffee. I wish I had that kind of coffee all over again.

The return trip was memorable. It was the day after king’s celebrations, and obviously security was very tight. The coordinators were running around on the day before our return, it seemed that various dignitaries would arrive for the celebrations on the day we’d depart. There were conflicting reports, some said approach road to the airport would be closed from 7 am onwards, while another said it’d close, but time was confidential. Since our flight was at 10 AM, we had planned to get to airport at 7 AM, but it seemed that would not suffice, and were suggested to go to the airport along with the Bhutanese group, who had to go at 2:30 in the morning – they had a very early flight, around 6 AM. We were ready, of course, but later it was suggested that we leave at 6 AM. At 6 AM, we were waiting at the hotel lobby, but the vehicle was not there, and did not come until 7. Apparently the road would not be closed at all. So we got to airport and waited until our time for check-in. Just as our flight came up in the screens, a fire broke out in the terminal building and soon, the whole terminal was filled with smoke. We were ushered into second terminal – terminal 2, and it was jam-packed. Finally, somehow, we did manage to complete check-in procedure, and when we got to departure gates, the flight had already started boarding – mind we did not stop anywhere after check-in till the gates except for a few minutes for VAT refund of the laptop. The return flight was somewhat dull with nothing interesting happening. Just another flight, I’d say.