Thursday 6 August 2009

We're here/there/everywhere


As the title says, we're two weeks in and already it's feeling like home- well it better had as we're stuck here now!

The flight was a bit of a killer especially when great things were promised by those in the know who said Qatar were BA class- not what we found at all. Two hours late and no word from anybody official as Heathrow was closing down late on a Friday night, then my TV didn't work! A interrupted sleep and six hours later (plus the delayed two hours) we were in the desert and dragged through Doha Airport to catch the luckily held back connecting flight (spared us the wait I suppose) and to be met by a sea of disgruntled lefty type Italian and French holidaymakers...

Some pantaloon wearing wannabe hippy even daring to put her seat back on a 6' 4" Brit- she was soon put in her place and back upright- luckily the Frogs don't like a fight and her elderly husband just Galically and garlically shrugged- I jest of course but only a little.

Again my TV did not work and I had to swap places with D to watch 'I love you, man' which was actually quite funny. We finally landed at 2pm GMT and 8pm local time after 14 hours which is the longest I've ever been in the air- can't imagine we'll be doing that very often, so people will just have to visit won't you...

The new airport in BKK was a bit weird as it's never nice to be greeted by surgical mask wearing officials when you're new to a country. What seemed like a long and tedious afters through the rigma of passports and visa checking we were pleased to see that the new hard suitcases were here, intact and not damaged after their maiden voyage.

With the £4500 in my laptop bag we gingerly stepped out into the airport arrival lounge hoping to see the smiling face of the representative of our new employer- only to realise she wasn't there. D then decided she needed the toilet and left me with everything to search down the other end of the airport! In the meantime a broken English call for 'Jnatan Boot' over the tannoy made me feel like James Bond for a moment, although I was brought down to earth as I don't recall the story where Bond pushes three bags up the escalator frantically while arguing the toss over which meeting point the unhelpful customer service rep had suggested. More 'Duty Free' than 'Live and Let Die'...

Luckily we were greeted by the delightful Pat and after a short minibus ride over flyovers that resembled an 'exotic spaghetti junction' we were left with some paperwork (at the infamous Louis' Tavern- a kind of halfway limbo house for St Steve's staff passing over to the other side)and told to be up at 9:00 to go flat hunting...

Coming next time: The flat hunting and exploring days...

4 comments:

  1. Sounds like a fun trip, hahaha! V. excited to follow your adventures via the blog :)

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  2. Sounds like the trip to Plymouth on the nipple tweaker, with you lozzing over everyone.

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  3. Thery have some very interesting looking tweakeresque public buses over here. 8BHT (about 10p) for as far as you want to go.

    Don't think they play 'Phoenix Nights' DVDs though...

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  4. Jonatan Boot? Don't you mean Henry Boot? Glad you gave what for to the horizontal French Madame. Numerous times I have given these ignorami vigorous shakes from behind to rudely stir them from their airborne slumbers.

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