Planning การวางแผน
Neither the wife or I have ever been to Thailand, and it was one of our ‘bucket list’ of countries we’d like to go to; a visit to which was more likely to happen when we were retired.
Our decision to bring a visit forward came about after, of all things, a funeral of one of the wife’s many aunts (her father was one of 12). It was at the funeral where Mr ABS met up with a number of her aunts & uncles, some of whom she hadn’t seen in nearly 40 years.
Discussions turned to her dad – he had, after marrying a Thai national, retired to the Sakon Nakhon region in North East Thailand some 25 years previously and Mrs ABS (and many of his siblings) hadn’t seen him since; in fact, she had lost all contact with him.
One of her aunts had however recently visited him and so her fathers’ contact details were swapped and contact was re-established and the prospect of a visit was moved forward.
Our plan to visit became more time sensitive, as in the summer of 2024 I lost both my parents and this focused the fact that Mrs ABS’ dad was himself 85 y.o. and not in the best of health.
With work commitments, the earliest we could go would be January 2025 (this also worked for another reason that will become apparent later) and started the arrangements.
Because of the need for an internal flight in Thailand and the fact we didn’t have a hotel booked where her dad lived (we’d been invited to stay with him), the number of carriers available to us was reduced to just two – Turkish Airlines or Emirates. (At the time we didn’t feel confident enough to book the flight, transfers etc by ourselves; in hindsight we should have.)
Neither of us fancied Turkish Airlines, so we went for the [slightly more expensive] Emirates flight.
We had to add a small complication to the travel plans in early December; Mrs ABS has some limited mobility issues and, after her on/off back problem flared up which meant that just standing around became painful, we decided to take a wheelchair with us.
We checked in our luggage at Heathrow and the wheelchair went off down the belt with neither us confident that we’d see it again..!
While we were checking in, a member of staff turned up with an airport wheelchair and the whole ‘airport wheelchair treatment’ began. It was whole new experience; we were fast-tracked through queues, security checks etc. and it went very smoothly in Heathrow and Dubai airports with both providing various staff to do the chair pushing – it made the whole airport terminal travel much less stressful.
Bangkok was … a little different.
The Emirates plane was the A380 and having never flown in anything larger than a 777, I was quite looking forward the flight; plus Emirates have a good reputation as a carrier.
We left Heathrow in the late afternoon, and so it wasn’t long before the food came around.
It was actually rather nice.
I found it a bit awkward to eat it being unable to wave my elbows around as is my custom, but that’s cattle economy class for you..
Too wide awake to sleep (it was only early evening UK time) Mrs ABS plugged in the headphones and watched a Billy Joel concert while I had a little play with the screen in front of me, watched a movie and then tracked the flight in an attempt to send myself to sleep.
After a few hours it worked! I finally felt sleepy so I tilted the seat back and was about to settle down:
‘Ladies and Gentlemen, we are now approaching Dubai. Please put your seat upright.. etc.’
Bugger.
We landed at Dubai Terminal Three. It is enormous. It seemed to go on for miles and we were both glad we had assistance to get us to the departure gate for the connecting flight.
The 2nd leg of the flight went ok although I couldn’t sleep with Mrs ABS fasto and snoring away beside me, and it didn’t seem long before breakfast was served and the approach into Bangkok began.
Suvarnabhumi, Bangkok สุวรรณภูมิ, กรุงเทพฯ
After the well-practised assistance of the previous two airports, we had a bit of a wake-up call at Bangkok. Yes, our chair was waiting for us after we left the plane – we were last ones off as we had to wait (ages!) for the chair to be recovered from the hold and bought to the exit door – but we were on our own. Fortunately, disabled signage was very clear so we were able to make our way from the gate, and having been fast-tracked through customs, recover our bags and make it to the terminal exit without too much mis-direction or [quiet] swearing etc.
(It is bad practice to lose one’s temper in public in Thailand – it is considered to be poor control and frowned upon. I did very well in this regard. ‘When in Rome’ etc..)
We had pre-arranged a transfer to our hotel so now, standing in this huge and very crowded exit terminal, we had to find the transfer company.
Mrs ABS had arranged it all so had the details:
“It’s next to an information desk”
“Yes, but I can see 4 of those from here”
“Well, we’ll have to check each one”
“Darling, there’s about 3000 people in the way and they have tons of bags”
“Don’t exaggerate!”
“I’m not! There’s loads… * pause * Deep breath … ‘muttermutter when in Rome, ABS, when in Rome…’
In order to locate the car, we were given an exit gate number from the terminal where (hopefully) the car would be parked and the registration number of the vehicle.
Fine. Easy, peasy, we thought.
Err.. No.
Outside; it was bedlam.
There were two lanes for pick-up and a further two lanes for arriving/departing cars. So there were four lanes of barely moving traffic with cars arriving in the outer two lanes and trying to ease their way into a pick-up lane and get to their assigned terminal exit gate number. At the same time, cars from the inner two lanes are trying to get into the outer two lanes so they could leave..
Air temperature: 34oC.
But it was oh so quiet (apart from engine noises). Where were the blaring car horns and angry voices from frustrated drivers one might expect?
There weren’t any. The drivers just accepted the situation and got on with it, patiently nudging their cars into tight spaces and waiting their turn. They were very polite chaps.
We finally found our car and despite the earlier assurances that the transfer company knew about our wheelchair, the car really wasn’t large enough. The wheelchair filled the rather limited boot, so our cases were jammed onto the passenger seat, completely obscuring the driver’s left hand view out of the car.*
* Thailand, like the UK, drive on the left which did surprise me. True, I have never been kept awake wondering which side of the road the Thais drive on, but still…
We got ourselves in and hoped the young chap who was driving knew what he was doing.
We eventually got going, and headed into the centre of Bangkok.
Author’s artistic Licence:
I didn’t have my SLR to hand and, as I found out later my phone camera (or maybe it was me?!), wasn’t up to taking sharp pictures from a fast-moving vehicle. I made up for it by taking these the next day:
After a few miles on an elevated highway with light traffic, we descended and entered Bangkok itself.
There was a bit of a difference.
The roads were packed and the drivers generally had a ‘BMW owner’ approach to the [non]use of indicators and [red light = go] traffic light discipline. When the queues started, motorbikes & scooters filled the little gaps between the cars, sometimes three-up or on occasion 4 up (usually with a small child standing in a scooters footwell and hanging grimly onto the handlebars). And then there were the numerous Tuk-Tuks included in the mix as well.
The road quality also declined – the surface looked smooth and was mostly pot hole free, however it was a bit, how shall I put it.., ‘uneven’.
And so, for the next 40 minutes or so our car not, it must be said, having being maintained in the best of conditions, rather alarmingly clonked and clunked its way into the centre of Bangkok, somehow managing to not only successfully retain its exhaust system and all of its wheels, but also deposit us safe and well at our hotel.
Our hotel, The Rembrandt, being rated as 4 star and fairly central was rather grand looking, and despite the smart appearance, it was slightly amusing to watch the bell boys wrestling with each other over the right to carry in our bags..!
That evening we went out for a meal still feeling a bit jet-lagged, and after one look at the narrow lumpy pavements we decided to leave the wheelchair in the hotel room.
Fortunately, there was a rather nice-looking restaurant practically next door to the hotel within easy walking for Mrs ABS and which didn’t disappoint.
Eating wonderful spicy food al fresco at 8pm
29oC. January.
Welcome to Thailand.
Bring it on..!
© Afghanistan Banana Stand 2025
