Finally here in Bangkok!

This is my first post from Bangkok! I finally made it! I actually thought I never would after the shitstorm that I had at the airport. I was flying with Gulf Air and my flight was scheduled for 09:30am, I’m waiting and it’s a little late, so they said 11:15am then they said 12:30pm, then they extended that to 02:00pm and then we finally got on a plane at 03:00pm. I’d had no sleep at all the night before because I camped out in londn Heathrow airport and I was buzzing with nerves so as soon as I got on the plane, I fell asleep. I had 2 chairs to myself and was nice and settled waiting for take off. Then I get woken up 2 hours after being asleep on the plane to find we were still docked at London Heathrow and hadn’t left yet! Then I got the shock of my life when the Captain announced that he had flown too many hours this day and it was against health and safety rules for him to fly anymore! I couldn’t actually believe it. So yes, we were all taken back off the plane into the departure lounge again and we were all fuming. I was pretty sure at this point that I was going to miss my connecting flight at Bahrain to Bangkok so I was kicking off big time. In the end the air hostess who was sorting us all out managed to get those who were going to Bangkok on a totally different flight with a totally different airline. I ended flying with Qatar Airways to Doha at 08:30pm and then from there to Bangkok. I finally arrived in Bangkok at 07:20pm.

The flight was fine once I was on it, I slept a lot of the way. I’m actually ill with a kidney infection at the moment so I was dosing myself up on codeine which made me drowsy so I slept an awful lot. It’s horrible feeling ill on a plane, also the medication kept making me feel sickly and I was having waves of sickly feelings over me which was awful. I met a Thai guy called Klem who is doing a PhD degree in engineering in the UK and was going home to help his family with the floods. He was very nice and kept me company a long the way. Also he gave me the biggest compliment ever. He said I know an awful lot about Thailand for a farang*, also he said I spoke very good Thai and that my knowledge was good and it was obvious I had done my research! Yay! Glad its all paying off! ;)

Neung met me at the airport and I was so happy to see him! We got back to his little apartment at the back of his bar that he owns as my house where I am supposed to be staying in Bang Yai, Nothaburi district is under floodwater of over a metre high! However it was up to Neung’s shoulders a week ago! It’s slowly starting to go down now. After I arrived at his apartment, he took me for a meal and then we went back home and watched a movie in bed. I caught up with some much needed sleep and adjusted my bodyclock to rid of my jet lag.

Bangkok is much quieter than usual due to the floods but the Thai people amaze me and those who are still here are just carrying on with their day to day lives as much as they can despite the turmoil they’re all going through. It’s a total inspiration. Everywhere seems to be sandbagged up, or entrances are bricked up so you’re having to step over everything but things still seem to be running as normal. I haven’t yet seen any flood waters however I don’t want to as the dirty flood water will be full of bacteria and I’m not sure my weak kidney could handle that right now. I’d probably get pretty sick.