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Published: December 4th 2008
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Hello there,
Finally I arrived in The Netherlands safe and well today, after being stranded during a week! It was a very long, stressful and tiring week! I also got a cold in Bangkok, which only made the whole situation even worse.
Cathay Pacific previously booked me for Sunday, but the protests at the airport kept on going so I couldn’t leave Bangkok on Sunday. The situation became worse. There were protesters also at the government building in the city, which they occupied since August. There was a grenade explosion there, which killed one and left about 50 injured. Then the protesters left the government building to join the other protesters at the airport. Both airports, Suvarnabhumi (international) and Dong Muang (domestic) were closed due to the protests. The protesters increased their presence at the airport and even made the police run away once they tried to intervene in the situation. In the city, those who are pro-government also held their protest against those ones at the airport. Meanwhile, the amount of stranded passengers kept growing, up to 300.000: each day there were 30.000 to 40.000 new stranded passengers according to the newspapers. Many passengers were leaving the
country by driving 10 to 12 hours to airports in Chiang Mai and Phuket. Sadly enough on their way to those airports, a few of them had car accidents. A Dutch man was killed, also a man from Hong Kong and one or two Canadians if I’m not wrong. Others were going to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia (24 hours drive) or even to Singapore (36 hours). This is just to give you an idea of how desperate the situation was. Even I was considering going “back” to Kuala Lumpur.
After that I spoke to a couple of other stranded tourists in Bangkok I knew better what to do regarding the 2000 Baht a day the Thai government was paying per stranded passenger. The information about this government help was also on the Dutch Embassy, but it wasn’t very clear how it really works. The Embassy themselves didn’t know either. There were just numbers to call, which I didn’t do because they would be occupied and make you wait very long. The tourists told me that you have to go to certain hotels, show your passport and ticket and they’ll check you in for free....Thai government pays. And that’s what
I did. Sunday I went to a hotel, which was full but they called another hotel for me which still had rooms but I had to share. I ended up in Twin Towers Hotel (3 stars), good room with view over Bangkok’s skyline, a pool, buffet for all three meals. I was very happy to be here...I felt like at least someone cares about me 😉 lol. At the hotel the Tourism Authority had a stand and many notice boards with information for passengers. They had a lot of airline information, but not from all airlines. For Cathay Pacific all passengers had to contact the airline themselves. Other airlines were offering free shuttle busses to other airports in the country. Qantas (Australia) even had free busses to Singapore, where passengers could board the aircraft bound down under. Other airlines, especially the American ones and some from the Middle East, didn’t even care about their passengers. Apparently they said “don’t even bother calling us before the airport opens again”. In these situation you’ll really find out which are the better airlines 😉 .
In the weekend I found out that my airline, Cathay Pacific, and some other airlines started with
special flights flying out of Utapao Airport, which lies near the city of Pattaya....140 km southeast of Bangkok. I decided to wait til Monday morning to go to Cathay Pacific’s office because they’d be closed on weekends and calling had no sense. I went with two Canadian guys who were also stranded since Nov. 26th. We got there about 9:15, while it opened at 8:00. I took number 54, they were serving number 18. I waited for two hours before they attended me. They booked me on the flight leaving on Wednesday from Utapao, but said that I had to come Tuesday again to confirm it. Tuesday again I went with the Canadians, we got there at 7:40 and there were already like 25 people waiting. Once inside, we saw that they’ll start serving number 277 while I had number 631!!! Some people took numbers Monday but had to come back to be attended. Many of those with numbers between 300 and 600 weren’t there so it took less long that everyone expected. Because I only had to come to ask if my flight was confirmed, I asked one of the staff to check that for me because I can’t
wait 4 to 5 hours just to know if I’m on board on Wednesday or not. She told me to ask again at 11:00...so I did. Five minutes later she walks out to say that I’m on the flight, also the Canadians. I felt very good of course...happy and relieved!
With the Canadians I shared a taxi all the way to Utapao airport on Tuesday night, a two hour drive for only US$ 60 ($20 each). We just wanted to be there way before our departure time. Our flight was leaving on Wednesday at 12:30. We spent the night there at the airport, there was free internet service. We slept on the bench for a while. The airport is a former US Base, it’s a very small airport. We had to check in outside, under tents. Everything went manually. Some airlines could do their check-in inside but the space wasn't too big, so three airlines had to do it outiside. When boarding, we all had to gather around 12:15 and we walked as a group through passport control, security check and then straight to the bus which took us to the Boeing 777-300 of Cathay Pacific. After a 2,5
hour flight we arrived in Hong Kong, where I had to wait about 7 hours for my flight to Amsterdam. The Hong Kong-Amsterdam flight took 12,5 hours in a Boeing 747-400. It’s long, but Cathay Pacific has such an excellent entertainment system with hundreds of movies, TV-shows, games, music etc. that you’ll never be bored! The service is excellent and this is still the best airline I ever flew with.
I was always wondering why the Thai King didn’t say anything about the protests. People really “love” the King in Thailand and if he says to stop the protests, people would stop it. But he kept his mouth shut while his country was losing hundreds of millions of dollars every day, while the image of the country was being damaged. Air mail, exports of flowers, imports of fish for Japanese restaurants etc. were some of the industries that lost money. Thailand can expect a negative growth in tourism next year, which could make a million jobs disappear. But those protesting at the airports won’t feel much if the tourism falls sharply because they were mostly part of the upper middle class or elite. A court decided Tuesday that prime
minister Somchai Wongsowat committed election fraud and must step down. So did he. The protesters at the airport were extremely happy about the news and decided to stop the protests Wednesday (yesterday) at 10:00. Soon a new prime minister will be elected, but newspapers say that the Thai politic situation will remain unstable.
So now I’ll spend only one week in The Netherlands instead of two. Some friends and family I won’t have a chance to see them, a pity. Will do so when I come back. I started today with all my paperworks and finished them all. It snowed today, which felt like a kind of “welcome” hahaha. Of course I also made some phone calls here and to Curaçao.
These will be seven calm days with some friends and family. I’m not planning to do much because I don’t want to spend too much money. I already spent too much extra money in Bangkok last week.
Take care and have a good day!
Elton
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Narda
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I'm happy you are back! Must be an uncomfortable situation over there :( Enjoy your week in The Netherlands and the snow! Narda