Plane to Bangkok

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Geo: 13.7308, 100.521

After taking Phenergon on Thursday to help with travel sickness on the plane, I was in bed by 8pm which of course meant that by 3am I was awake and fully rested. I eventually got out of bed at 7 and jumped in the shower. By 9am dad had arrived to say goodbye and we were finished packing; just. We took Magpie and Elle to the cattery, collected Nana and Pa, went to the chemist to get Sudafed for my sinus, detoured over the West Gate Bridge, dropped the car off at Jetport and were at the airport by 11:40. Surprisingly we were one of the only people who had checked in via the Internet so didn't wait long at all to finish our check-in and have them take our suitcases. After eating lunch (rolls) we realised we had less than an hour to go through customs, immigration and board our plane before it was due to leave, there were very few people already queuing so we didn't take long but true to form they have renovated duty free so we were forced to walk in a massive circle just to get to our gate.

Even though I thought I had checked everything really well, my bags had to get checked after they went through the scanner - I had left a paid of scissors in my pencil case. I know I checked!!!

Due to our plane arriving late, by the time we were meant to depart the air hostesses were still on their iPads' sitting at the gate wasting time.

At 2:35 we sent Dad the final text saying that we were sitting in our seats. We then had to wait about 20 minutes for the last passengers to board – a family that must have got lost!!! Very annoying. A short while into our flight we were given assorted nuts and later our main meal which was either sliced chicken with bamboo shoot in red curry (which was incredibly hot!), steamed Thai hom mali rice, stir-fried green bean and carrot (which I was sure was pumpkin) or barramundi fish with tomato and tapenade crust, roast potatoes and stir-fried vegies which mum reports as ''not bad; passable''.

My computer/TV/entertainment system froze several times and then halfway through the flight everyone else's' froze for an hour and a half. Despite the entertainment system being down mum watched The Vow, the Big Bang Theory and I watched 21 Jump Street as instructed by friends from school; it was a good movie. We were seated next to a Pakistani man who was getting a bit impatient with us getting up every hour for a stretch.

Towards the end of the flight mum and I were both feeling sick and getting grumpy, so we were incredibly relieved to see on the flight path map that Bangkok was very close, until an announcement was put over saying that there were no spots for us to land so we would be doing a huge circle to waste time.

The flight landed at roughly 9pm Thailand time (midnight in Melbourne) and we got off soon after. The trip from the gate to immigration and the bag carousels was over 1km (I did calculate yesterday but forgot) which is exactly what we wanted to do after a nine hour flight! By 9:42 we had got our bags, gone through immigration, made our way into the 29 degree heat and found a taxi. The taxi ride certainly brought new meaning to dad's favourite ad on TV "off like a rocket" as we were averaging 120km on the highway with no seatbelts and heaps of other cars. Before arriving at the toll booths, our taxi driver was swerving all over the place trying to work out which lane would be the fastest.

I was incredibly relieved when we pulled up to our hotel, The Grand China Princess. We all filled out our details at reception and went up to our room on the 19th floor. Our room has a king bed, not twin, and in the bathroom there was a cockroach! Admittedly I'm not the best when it comes to bugs so mum rang reception and finally made them understand her and they came to collect it; for the rest of the night all I could feel was bugs on me, I was very paranoid. We were in bed by 11:30pm Thai time.

(Mum – I got up during the night and found another 3 cockroaches in the shower. They were all lying on their backs as if dead, but when I went to pick the first one up it started madly moving. It was so so hard getting the nerves up to picking them up but I had no choice after witnessing Melissa's reaction earlier)

From Nana;s diary
10.05 Kate & Mel arrived;
10.26 left Upper Beaconsfield
11.36 At Jetport for 5 minutes.
12.00 Through check in. Ate our own lunch,
12.20 Queue for immigration.
2.15 Boarding call
2.40 45 minutes late.
3.45 Drinks
4.00 Meal
10.00 All personal screens lost power
11.32 Landed.
2.00 am (11pm Thai time) Bed with an orchid on pillow.

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Photos

The day we collected our tickets for the trip
We have tickets 02 June 2012

Comments

[Lyn]

An excellent driver took us right where we needed to be.

[Lyn]

I'm glad we learned how to do the icheck in. Lunch was tasty.