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Published: August 10th 2006
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Well, it had been a tiring year. Too much time spent on site at a dreary project with no end in sight. The months kept rolling away and I desperately craved a break. I had made some short trips during the SARS season in the beginning of the year and felt that I needed something more adventurous, and most of all, a longer stay out. Southeast Asia was the given parameter, the difficulty would be in trying to connect some of the cities I wanted to see, as most of them were quite far from another. It took many months of preplanning, drawing complicated flightpaths on blank sheets of paper, but that was all in good fun, as always, the main complications was trying to meet up with local friends and scheduling the visits.
Once I finally neared something close to an actual plan my trusted corporate travel agent helped me stitch together a schedule, tirelessly cross examining fares and conditions cutting the costs where possible. As usual the main obstacle was finding a half decent priced flight from Europe to Asia, the rest of the schedule came together quite nicely. So when we finally came upon a campaign offering by Air France I reluctantly accepted. Ann-Sofie, I don't know where you are now, but your efforts will always be remembered!
A few days before departure a very big envelope crashed into my mailbox, filled to the brim with airline tickets. Megalomanic laughters could be heard from my apartment for several days. In short, I now have preplanned flights for the entire 30 days of my trip, the route Gothenburg-Paris-Bangkok-Phuket-Bangkok-Taipei-Singapore-Seoul-Singapore-Hong Kong-Guam-Hong Kong-Bangkok-Paris-Gothenburg. I don't think I will earn an environmental award any time soon.
So, today is Christmas Day, the bags are packed and Gibbon ferries me to Landvetter Airport in Gothenburg. As we arrive the wind bites through my clothes and a fine rain is peppering me from the side, soaking me completely. The airport is full of holiday travellers and the Air France BAe 146 is filled with their excited laughs and exclamations. I look out through the water running across the window wanting to get off the ground immediately. I had anticipated the service or at least the food to be decent on an Air France flight, but the miserable meat and pommes chateaux proved me dead wrong.
Finally landing at Charles De Gaulle we were late already, and the ground staff picks up the handful of us who are connecting to Bangkok. We're thrown inside a minibus and the driver floors the pedal and proceeds to zig zag between bagage trolleys and transfer buses like a madman as we dash towards Terminal 2. He had to push his entire weight on the breaks at least once but at least we got there on time... We are then escorted all the way to the gate, presumably to make sure nobody tries to stray for a tax free shop or so. The good luck continues, the seating arrangement has shifted and I end up in the middle of the cabin just behind four obnoxious Swedes who cleverly brought their own supply of liquid entertainment onboard, which they now proceed to consume before we've even left the apron. After some initial confusion I am finally sitting with a wildly staring guy on my left and a married couple on my right. Turns out that the guy next to me is checking out the cute Thai girl sitting on my right, and his eyes are constantly appearing in the corner of my eye. Spooky...
Well, the AF jumbo is old, and not much of interest happens during the flight. The staff seems a bit preoccupied while they serve a mildly appetizing meal consisting of chicken and carrot, the "entertainment" is a strange Disney movie calles "Holes" and I spend most of the time trying to sleep and talk a bit to the Thai girl while her husband is asleep, while listening to the constant antics of the Swedes in front of me.
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