So here I am readying myself for yet another long journey into Bangkok to live with my wife, Amber. I am due to leave after Thanksgiving and my plane ticket is already purchased. However, there is one slight problem - the Bangkok airport has just closed down because political protestors have occupied the terminals. They are literally preventing travelers from boarding their planes, and from what I understand some were even on the tarmac! They wouldn’t leave the airport until the current government stepped down and a new election was held. Naturally, the airport had to be shut down indefinitely leaving thousands of people stranded in the airport and in Bangkok.
OK, so the airport is still closed and it’s the day before I fly out. I figure my flight will be cancelled since the airport is still closed. The first leg of the flight is through Continental so I call them up and ask if my flight has been cancelled. They don’t know if the flight is cancelled because the second portion of the flight, which lands at Bangkok, is flown through Northwest Airlines. Fair enough. They give me NWA’s phone number and I call them up. NWA says the flight is still on schedule even though the destination airport is still closed. What kind of crap is that?! Their logic is that by the time I reach Japan and board the NWA flight to Bangkok, the airport might be open by then. Might?! Are you freaking serious?! The airport is closed indefinitely!! There are frickin’ people on the frickin’ tarmac and the government refuses to use force to move them out. This isn’t some picnic, of course the airport will still be closed before I board the plane in Japan. I ask them what kind of consideration or support they will provide if I end up stranded in Japan and they tell me that they cannot offer any help for cases of political/civil unrest. Well that’s just great! I’m expected to get on a plane to Japan knowing that I will be stranded there without any travel assistance until the Bangkok airport opens. I don’t think so. I end up cancelling my flight and getting a full refund. At least I was able to do that!
Well now what? How do I get to Bangkok without flying into the Bangkok airport? The other major international airport in Thailand is in Chang Mai, but this airport is also closed because they diverted all flights into Bangkok there. The only other feasible option is to fly into Phuket and drive to Bangkok, which is over 500 miles by car - roughly the same distance from San Antonio to New Orleans. OK, what about trains from Phuket to Bangkok? I check the train schedule and there are a few trains to choose from, most of them take 8 to 12 hours to get to Bangkok with all the stops. However, there is a problem. The flight arrives into Phuket at 1am and the next train out is at 7am. This leaves quite a long layover at the airport and/or train station. Oh well, I’ve slept on the ground in airports several times while backpacking Europe. I can handle this. My lovely wife decides that this is no way to travel (plus she wants to see me as soon as possible), so she hires a taxi to pick me up at the airport when I arrive in Phuket to drive me all the way to Bangkok.
So it’s set. I get up early the next morning and catch a 6 am flight from San Antonio to Chicago. I slept most of the time and had plenty of room as the plane wasn’t full. I check in at the Korean Air ticket counter in Chicago and get my tickets for the rest of the flights. The plane is boarding when I reach the gate. They serve some good meals on the flight and the wine isn’t bad either. I end up sleeping a lot, reading my book “The Game”, and watching a couple of movies including the new Batman movie and ‘Wanted’. Batman was good but a very long and drawn out movie. I liked the message in ‘Wanted’ but thought the movie could have been put together a little better. The 14 hours surprisingly goes by faster than expected. During the 3 hour layover in Seoul I have lunch at one of the food stalls. Nothing is in English, but they have pictures of the dishes. I pick something that looked like curry chicken with rice and soup. It is actually pork curry, but it is delicious! The 7 hour flight into Phuket is a bit more painful. The plane is full and there aren’t individual TV screens at each seat. We are at the mercy of whatever is playing on the big screen and few drop down screens. The movie is some kiddie movie I don’t care to see. The rest of the time they show clips from various variety shows - weird stuff like acrobatics, Korean funny home videos, stand up comedy in Korean, tap dancing, animal tricks, and tourism stuff. I am glad to finally reach Thailand.
My taxi driver is waiting for me after Customs holding a sign with my name on it and away we go at about 1am. The car is probably a mid to late 90s Toyota Camry look alike. I always forget that the steering wheel and pedals are on the passenger side and that they drive on the opposite side of the road than in the US. It always takes some time to get used to because you always think you are about to get hit during a turn. The driver speaks no English whatsoever but is nice enough to stop every four hours for a bathroom break and to get snacks at a seven eleven. The drive is long and I only take a few naps. After 11 hours we arrive in Bangkok and it becomes apparent that the driver doesn’t know where he's going. He calls like 4 or 5 people asking for directions. We back track and make several u-turns in the busy streets and freeways. What a mess! After all this traveling my taxi driver doesn’t even know how to get to where we’re going?! He accidentally enters a toll way and calls another person. At this point, I notice an exit sign in Thai characters and in English of the street for the apartment. I point at the exit sign and try to pronounce the street name. The street is spelled ’Sathorn’ but the h is silent. So it is actually pronounced ‘sattorn‘. Of course I don’t know this. So I say ’sathorn’ to the driver as I point to the sign. He repeats back ’sattorn’. I nod yes and say again, ’sathorn’. He nods again saying ’sattorn’. Whatever dude, this is the street we need to be on. He exits and motions to me asking which way to turn onto Sathorn. Luckily, I googled mapped the area a week before and have an idea where the apartment is relative to the river. I see the river is to our left so I point him to turn right. We go down the street trying to look for address numbers on all the mid and high rise buildings, but they don’t have any. Finally after a few more blocks I see the apartment building about a quarter mile down (I recognize the building from the picture on google maps). I try to point at the building to the driver but it is obvious he doesn’t know what I'm pointing at or why I'm pointing at it. He ends up taking a u-turn and driving away from the building. I keep pointing at the building but he pulls over and once again calls someone for directions. We are parked in front of the UOB bank building and he keeps repeating UOB on the phone. It is clear they have no idea where he is. After hanging up the phone, I convince him (with more pointing) to u-turn again. I keep pointing at the building until we finally pull up at the correct destination. Geez! I have a better sense of direction here in Bangkok than this guy does! I am finally here. Amber greets me in the lobby and I am introduced to the apartment where I take a much needed shower and nap. The journey had been a long and grueling one.
So here is a recap of my journey:
- 3 hour flight from San Antonio to Chicago
- 1 hour layover in Chicago
- 14 hour flight to Seoul, Korea
- 3 hour layover
- 7 hour flight to Phuket
- 12 hour taxi drive to Bangkok
My trip took 40 hours and consisted of 3 flights and a long taxi ride. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I also drove for two and a half days from Delaware to Texas by myself during the previous week. I’m sure if the taxi would have broken down on the way to Bangkok I would have resorted to a bus or even an elephant to complete the journey! Elephants are cool. I rode one in Thailand before, and as long as you keep feeding them bananas they keep going. I knew that being in Thailand would be an adventure itself, but never did I think that getting here would be so taxing. Oh, and just to make me feel a little better about my trip, the Bangkok airport opened up the day after I arrived! Go figure. But as they say in Thailand, “Mai Pen Rai” (pronounced my-pin-rye) which loosely means ’no problem’.
The elephant I rode on during my first visit to Thailand
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