The next part of our Thailand adventure takes us from the
north to the south. The itinerary for the day was a flight to Trang via Bangkok.
This would then be followed by an hour drive, a 15 minute long tail boat ride,
and a 10 minute tuktuk drive. All in all, an estimated 9-hour journey. Not
something we were looking forward to with Sarah still battling against her
cold/flu.
The journey didn’t start well. As the sun rose, it caused a
patch of fog directly over the airport. First we heard of this was when some
other flights around this time started to get announcements about delays. Still
nothing on our flight though. So being the aviation geek that I am, I opened an
app called FlightRadar24, which shows the planes in the sky around the world in
real time. I could see our plane was circling in the hold. I watched the
screen, noting its altitude to see if this would give me more information than
the staff, as we weren’t getting anything out of them. 10 minutes or so later,
I see the plane start climbing and heading back in the direction of Bangkok, it
had clearly given up. Not cool!
Then the staff confirmed what the app had already told me a
good 15 minutes before, that the flight was indeed delayed. I wasn’t too
concerned at this point as I’d left a 4-hour window at Bangkok, as we had to
collect our bags and check-in for our second flight, I didn’t want to be rushing
around. I would guess an hour had gone and decided to talk to the staff, to see
if my connecting flight was at risk, they assured me it wasn’t. This was
shortly followed by loud mouth American, who shouted to his friend, ‘come here,
they’re sorting us out’. This drew my attention; how were they being sorted out
I wondered. I noticed on the app that there was a 10.20am flight to Bangkok
also on Air Asia, our flight was meant to depart at 8.20am. Perhaps they’d been
moved to that flight? I asked about moving to the 10.20am flight, they informed
me it was full. So, we had to sit it out. I did a bit of googling and
discovered a flight to Trang from Bangkok at 17.40pm, also on Air Asia. A quick
call to the hotel informed me that I would still be able to make it to the resort
at that time of night. So, all good. That’s what ended up happening, the flight
eventually left Chiang Mai at around 12.30 I think, 5 hours sat in the airport.
Air Asia were good in the end though; they gave us all a McChicken sandwich and
a bottle of water.
We made it to Bangkok and Air Asia had already moved us to
the 17.40pm flight, which was great to hear. However, it did mean another 3.5
hours in Bangkok airport this time! Fortunately, the time flied, some food and
a nap saw to that.
I want to take the opportunity to thank Air Asia, aside from the lack of information at Chiang Mai, they looked after us very well. The food at the airport and changing our flight for us.
We’d arranged a pickup with the hotel at Trang, so the final
part of our journey went far smoother! We were greeted at the airport by a man
holding a sign with Sarah’s name on, and he escorted us into a minivan. This
wasn’t your average minivan though, it had reclining seats, bottled water for
us and an entertainment system if we’d so wished. So, we took the
opportunity for a nap!
We then boarded a long tail boat, with just us aboard. Our
own private boat to the island! Epic. Then they were two hotel staff waiting at
the pier, then helped us of the boat, took our luggage and drove us to the
resort.
We final arrived at 8.50pm. So, it took us 14 hours in the
end! Not fun, but the view in the morning when we woke was well worth it.
