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Hello All
I've arrived in Bangkok safe and sound despite all of the passengers on the airplane looking blankly at each other when the air hostess (more like air head!) announced, "please can you get off the plane - we need to refuel the plane" (WHAT!), we hardly moved 100 metres and was still on the tarmac at Heathrow....is this for real I said to myself! Anyway she had made a mistake and should have said that the de-icing in the plane is broken and is waiting for engineers to fix it (do they not have MOTs for planes?). A few of us started to get nervous as the air hostesses kept on announcing things and then correcting themselves which did not give me any faith in them - the woman next to me did the sign of the cross! After 2 hours sat on the flight path we finally got a slot on the runway and took off at midnight!
The flight over was full and I was sat between 2 ladies - one of which was on a business trip, Izabela from Croatia and the other Murial from Belgium visiting a friend in Bangkok for a month. Izabela and I were chatting away and exchanging stories etc. as we got to know each other on our ten and a half hour flight to Bangkok. I asked where she was staying, and it just so happens that she was just in the hotel down the road from me, so we said that we would share a taxi to Sukhumvit Road (a very long road...). Murial however, didn't have a room booked and was a typical backpacker with just a tiny rucksack (my gym bag was bigger than that), so I said she could stay with me for the night if only they had a twin room available (I was not going to share a bed with a stranger!).
We cleared customs and claimed our luggage and walked through to the newly build airport and we were pounced on by loads of taxi drivers trying to get us to use their taxi company at 1,100 Bhat for the shared taxi ride - we were firm and said no thank you and walked on. We walked out to the front of the building and there was an official taxi rank, we managed to barter the taxi fare to 550 Bhat (how good aare we huh?), that's about 6 quid for a 50 minute journey - what a bargain! You can't even get from my house in Swindon to town for that! The best bit was when the taxi driver saw all of our luggage (well mine mainly!). I had 2 great big bags, one with most of my dive gear in and the other with clothes and toiletries (as you do!) - sorry Amy I did say that I would only take one bag, but it couldn't be helped! We managed to get one big bag in the boot together with Izabela's and Murial's little rucksack between her legs and my other bag on the back seat. So far I've not had to carry my bags! ha ha!!
We got to our own hotels and luckily The Swiss Park Hotel had a twin room, so Murial shared a room with me for the night (not something I would do again - I quite like my privacy and space). We dropped off our bags, refreshened up, ready to go and meet Izabela at her hotel an hour later than expected as Murial and I got lost on the way and turned up at 10pm...we were starving by this stage and poor Bella was still waiting for us - bless her. We decided to go for some sushi just opposite her hotel. We had a great meal for next to nothing and loads and loads of food (Mmm was it sustainable fish - I don't think so Rob - sorry!). Over dinner we had decided to have our first foot massage (a well deserved one I must say!) just next door to the sushi restaurant (how convenient). We turned up at 11.30pm and they were happy to give us all one (ohhh errrr missus!!) for 250 Bhat (around 3 pounds) each for an hour - I think I could get used to this (check the photo out!).
That night I got to bed at 2am knowing I had to be up bright and early for my pick-up at 8am for my 3 day tour.
Thank you all so, so much for your text messages, e-mails and notes on my message board. keep them coming as I'm missing you lots.
Love Teresa xxxx
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