Bangkok - Day 1 - Spain to Bangkok via 6 hour stop off at home...

Hello people.
So as I sit here a little groggy from a combination of a battle with time zones and a few beers last night I thought I should take a few moments to do a quick entry.

On Monday morning I woke up in Estapona in southern Spain on the last day of my holiday with my family. The journey home thanks to a beautiful balance of sleezyjet's inability to flex for both children and wheelchairs combined with not really leaving early enough meant a fair amount of stress was in order.  For example in Malaga airports wisdom they decided that because we had a disabled person with us that our party had to be split at every given opportunity, so we are constantly in seperate queues for security / boarding etc and the paperwork is all together with one person so how does that work? anyhow we got back to Gatwick and then home and although I moan about the journey, all in all the holiday was great, good fun, surprisingly relaxing given the 17 month old in tow.

6 hours at home flew by... (oh the irony, you sit on planes and it feels like forever, you sit at home and time actually seems to speed up)

I was getting picked up for my trip to bangkok at 8pm, well at least that was what was in my diary and had been planned.  Like a good little boy I took my stuff and waited outside as we'd left it fairly tight for the flight at 10 anyway...8.05...8.10...8.15 so I thought I'd just check, called the car company we use and surprise bloody surprise 'sorry sir we have no booking for you / no car available' followed by another call of 'seems we had the email but missed it and now cant do anything about it' Joy of sodding joys just what I needed when I'd already been travelling for 8 hours that day... so anyway I called a cab and set them the challenge 'how fast can you get me to T3?' and a mildly grumpy but very helpful cab driver rocks up 5 minutes later and hurtles (best word to use) up the A3 / M25 to the airport, I get there 50 mins before flight and just get to the gate in time... phew...

This was my first time on a 747 Jumbo. Ive managed to go on almost every commercial plane in use I think from a little focker 50 prop through to the amazing new A340-600 (prob my favourite plane so far) but I'd never managed to get on either of the bigger craft 747 or A380, My hope was with this trip and my New Zealand trip next month I'd get on both. I'd never truly appreciated the size of a jumbo until I got up really close at the gate and then boarded. It is an amazing feat of engineering that we take for granted every day, how something that big and heavy stays up at 39000 feet still amazes me (yes I know it's basic physics, but some of physics seems like magic no?)

The flight itself was pretty smooth, the great thing about these night flights are they are pretty conducive to sleep, something I've always struggled with on a plane, Im getting better, almost every flight I feel my fears ebbing slightly which I can only see as a good thing, but I'm still far from a 'happy flyer' and anything that helps is good, so when the BA cabin crew start plying you with alcohol and food whenever possible then shut all the lights down so everyone can sleep it enabled me to get at least 4 hours kip.

This is also how I beat jet lag, for me it's all about 'tactical sleeping' so when we land at 3.30pm Thai time ive been up long enough on the plane to feel like it could be the afternoon. kind of works for me...

The entry into BK (no not Burger King you pleb) airport was amazing, it's rainy season here which as far as I can tell seems to mean baking sun accompanied with occasional mental thunderstorms then back to baking sun. The BA Captain obviously has the remit to avoid the thunderheads as we approach, weaving in between the clouds like a computer game, it was great fun and an amazing set of clouds to look at. Unfortunately I forgot to get my camera out of the hold so don't have any picks of the journey, apologies!

So anyway, a nice cab ride (if you can call a BMW 740 a cab) to the hotel, I'm still getting over the fact that the cab had wifi in it...I felt like a nerd in an even nerdier world.

So anyways that was the journey, all went pretty smoothly, ill talk about the hotel etc in the next entry.

Cheers
Joe

Just a quick update

Just got back from malaga holiday with family too much to blog so instead im saving that pleasure for the trip to bangkok which is...now just boarded my first 747 so will update when there is something other than...im knackered to say!