Goodbye UK – Hello Thailand!

Monday 6th December 2021

Thank you, Sophie, for carrying my laptop bag to the bus stop and making sure I got on the bus safely. You have been the perfect friend over the last 5 weeks, feeding me dinner in your bed, rescuing me from Manu’s awful lodger and introducing me to the White Lion. I’m going to miss popping over the road to see you – good luck with everything my lovely, especially finishing your house and preparing my room ready for my return – lol.

Getting in was easier than getting out…

When booking my trip, I had to buy a return ticket before applying for a 60-day visa. However, after making an enquiry about something (can’t remember what) I was told that I didn’t need a 60-day visa and could enter using the Thai Pass 30-day visa exemption program and then, once in Thailand apply for a 30+ day extension. Awesome – tons less paperwork and it was so quick and easy; my Pass came through within 3 hours of submitting my application. Checking in at Heathrow – not so easy – the steward insisted I needed a 60-day visa and dragged me off to her superior. As you can imagine, after 2 years of planning and waiting, I was ready for the fight and just about to don on my Thai kick boxing kit when the first steward decided to actually read the printed email that I had repeatedly waved in her face and then, all of a sardine, they checked me in. Fingers crossed the other end goes a little more smoothly.

After all of that and 3 nights of partying I just about recall take off and woke just as we landed in Vienna – the perfect flight!

Vienna’s transfer lounge isn’t much fun. It’s long and thin and boring. So far I’ve strolled up and down it 3 times, drank coffee, drank tea, ate a salmon salad baguette, which was delicious, and spent 3 minutes in the smoking box to have a puff on my vape – never again – I came out smelling like a human ashtray and, an hour later, can still smell the chemical fumes oozing from my pores. OMG – I still have another 3 hours of this that’s enough time to repeat all of the above – time for a beer

A little later on … the beer is working … off to the ashtray room again.

Lol – what a flight – I think I conked out after the obligatory taking off photos cause I woke to dinner being served – vegetables & pasta in a bolognaise sauce, salad with more dressing than lettuce, a bread roll and some type of vanilla & chocolate sponge for desert – it had some taste to it, but even if it hadn’t I would have still eaten it all. Free alcohol!

After dinner the guy next to me forgot to put his mask back on so I gave him a polite reminder, I even used the word please. His response was a sarcastic ‘what are you a nurse?’ I should have said ‘no I’m a secondary school teacher, now do as you’re told or I’ll have to give you a 20 minute detention.’ But I replied, ‘no need to be sarcastic, it’s the rule and I was also very polite’. And so the conversation started, by the middle of the flight he told me he fancied me and asked me to be his 5^th wife! By the end of the flight his friend turned to me and said ‘don’t you think he’s been a real pain the whole journey’ – yep and I also have a bruise on my arm from where he kept squeezing it.

Thank you, Ray and Ash, for being such fun flight companions, it certainly didn’t feel like 10 hours but then perhaps the 2 bottles of wine you consumed and several cans of beer (I’m not confessing to quantities) that I consumed may have played a huge part in that. Ash, if you ever come across this can I please ask you, next time you drop a suitcase on someone’s head, even if deliberate, at least be polite about it and apologize.

 

Tuesday 7th December 2021

I got through Thai passport control and security without a single question being asked!

Everyone, and I mean everyone, wears a mask – outside on the street, in the shops, in their cars, on their mopeds.

Test and go – one night’s quarantine in the Season Siam Hotel.

My room was a little worse for wear, but for £80 (including airport transfer, x2 PCR tests (one for arrival and one for day 6), 1 night’s sleep and breakfast) I am not complaining. They did the first test in the car park area before letting me into the hotel and escorting me straight to my room – don’t you just love a bathroom without a smoke detector, so much easier than hanging out a hotel window.

OMG – my feet and ankles are so swollen – I’m not ready for a sudden death from blood clots racing from my leg bottoms to my heart – quick internet search and I have them elevated higher than my heart on the spare pillow and while I’m here 40 winks seems quite fitting ….

5 hours sleep later… the swelling is going down and my heart appears to be beating normally. Perhaps I should purchase compression socks for the journey home – whenever that may be.

Another 2 hours later… mid zoom call to my mum and dad, and my PCR result came back negative – I am a free woman!

Feeling a little nervous, phone and computer batteries are not going to last much long and I don’t have a plug adaptor – Tracey where are you, contact me please before it’s too late.

OK Ms Lawes, it’s time to take a deep breath and venture out for food and, fingers crossed, a plug adapter. The receptionist said turn right out of the hotel, so I did and then turned right again and right again and then, with the desire not to get lost on my first night dominating my thoughts, I did a U-turn. The couple of back streets I did venture down were very interesting, lots of little sewing shops and street food vendors. I even came across one of those cheap shops that sells everything except travel adaptors. Back on the main street I had chicken and cashew nuts (cooked right before my hungry belly) and rice and a beer for dinner. Eating meant taking my mask off reminding me that I didn’t have any deodorant – don’t you just love a 7 eleven store. And the hotel sold plug adaptors.