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Faulty controller on engine 3...
So our travels didn’t get off to the best of starts. All seemed to be going smoothly – we got the “goodbyes” over without too many tears (in fact none from James), made it to the airport in good time (which is a rarity for us) and boarded our plane at the scheduled time. Unfortunately that’s where our luck took a turn. Just before we took off, but after James had expressed his satisfaction with the food menu and claimed that this was going to be the “best flight ever”, there was an announcement by the captain informing us that there was a fault with one of the engines and that the engineers had been called.
Thirty minutes later, with the temperature inside the plane reportedly reaching 30 degrees, we had to disembark the plane for health and safety reasons!
After a long 4 hours and a personal apology from the pilot, we were finally on our way to Bangkok. The pilot informed us that he had put in an extra 4 tonnes of fuel to try to make up some time, however it still seemed an almost certainty that we would miss our connecting flight to Cambodia.
Despite the pilot’s best attempts, we just missed our connection. Seeing as that was the last flight to Cambodia that day we were going to have to spend our first night in Bangkok. Luckily we were able to book onto the first flight to Cambodia the next morning (this was free of charge which I was most impressed by!)
We spent at least 20 minutes at Bangkok airport trying to find the hotel reservations desk (Bangkok is a big airport!) During this time we had one very mean looking security guard assure us he could book us a nice hotel for “good price”, whilst another ran towards us waving his arms frantically when we got in the lift (we’re not sure what he wanted!). We were also hounded by every taxi driver as well as people trying to sell us tours.
Finally we found the hotel reservation desk. After declining a night in the local Novotel for $200 (the travellers budget would not permit that), the reservation lady sorted us out with a night in a more modestly priced hotel. In fact, for just over $20 we got a night in a clean and spacious hotel room with air conditioning; satellite TV, a mini bar and complimentary drinks. The price even included the transfers from the airport and a wake up call in the morning!
So, although we hadn’t intended to spend our first night in Bangkok, the faulty controller on engine 3 didn’t cause us too much inconvenience. We were however so determined not to miss our flight the following morning that we actually arrived at the airport an hour early. It’s unheard of for us to be early!
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