July 29th, 2014
On our way home….
This travel day to get back to Bangkok was not as smooth as things usually go for us. We had a taxi booked for 9am pick up at our hotel in Khao Lak, and that apart went great. He was there early even. So we were down in Phuket at the airport by 10:20am, which was plenty of time to check in for our 12:15 flight on Bangkok Airways to Bangkok. Bangkok Airways even has a separate lounge for their customers with drinks, snacks and free wifi at the Phuket airport so we are feeling pretty good about all this until at 11:45am when it was time to board and there isn’t anyone at the gate. No staff at all. So I start asking questions. Oh, the flight has been delayed…..not a huge deal for us, until we hear it has been delayed until 2:35pm. We had made plans to meet friends in Bangkok at 5pm. Under normal circumstances when we thought we were getting in at 1:40pm, this gave us loads of time. But now Troy had to get in touch and change the plans to 6pm. They gave us a food voucher for 250 baht each for either Subway or Burger King. This sounds like a lot ($9 USD). But as we have discussed before, airport food is atrociously expensive. As it turns out 250 doesn’t cover a meal at either place, so after we pick something really basic and kick in another 20 baht. We get food from Burger King. And this is really only done to punish the airline….it’s not out of desire for fast food from an airport vendor.
So the plane loads up at 2:10pm as newly promised and we are off. Uneventful flight until it comes time to land in Bangkok. We had circled a bit in the air already which we sensed, but then something happened that I’ve never experienced before. There was a storm happening right over top of the airport but the plane was coming in to land and then what felt like right before we were to touch down (couldn’t exactly tell because the visibility out the side windows was zero-I am guessing the pilot couldn’t see anything either) the nose of the plane points back in the sky and we zoom back off upwards. There was one lady behind us who screamed, which didn’t help with the anxiety level in the plane. So up we go, and then a couple minutes later, the stewardess comes on and explains that we are going to “hold over the airport for 15 minutes while we wait for the weather to improve”. I’m totally ok with this given the trouble that planes have been having lately. If the pilot isn’t feelin’ it, he should just wait til he does. 😉
So 20 minutes later he tries again and brings us in just fine. But now it is 4:30pm and we are going to be even more late for our date. The plane bursts with applause after the plane has it’s wheels on the ground and we notice several (and I mean several) full barf bags as we disembark. There was a LOT of turbulence on this flight, the kind that does make you woozy.
Our bags took forever to come and then after waiting for the shuttle and the awful traffic getting to the hotel, we were now looking at 6:05 pm on the clock. So another message to our friends….how about 7pm?? Then the girl at the desk tells us a taxi will take 1.5-2 hours to get us to the city at that time of day. And she informs us the train is a much better option. OH?? Is it now…..we don’t know anything about the train, but if we are to hope to meet our friends and maybe have something to eat, we are going to have to figure it out. So for 60 baht, the hotel takes us to the train station, 45 baht each for a train ticket on the airport line, then a transfer to the BTS and another 22 baht each, we are at Siam Center. Then believe it or not we literally just run right into Spencer and Chrissy on the street we chose, right as they walk up too. The whole thing took 45 minutes start to finish and cost 194 baht. So that beats the 2 hour plus 500 baht taxi ride! We were very proud of ourselves too actually.
We went to Siam Somtam for supper and Mango Tango for dessert and had some wonderful conversation. Spencer is a childhood friend of Troy’s from Dawson Creek and he hadn’t seen him in 20 years, but through the beauty of Facebook learned we were all in Thailand at the same time, so figured it would be fun to meet up. Glad it worked out!!
Then we did the whole train thing in reverse to get back to the hotel. A short 4.5 hours sleep was ours for the taking before the 5am wake call came to catch the shuttle back to the airport to start our trek home. Which is where we are now…..
See everyone soon!
