TonyT's third Thailand blog: September to October 2015.
Page 13
PHUKET and BANGKOK... ... and home.
THURSDAY 1st OCTOBER: We were up and about early and down to breakfast. Finished off last bits of packing and the resort's electric taxi collected Aom, Jack and our cases whilst I walked up to Reception to check out and settle the bill.
Taxi to Phuket Airport took around 1hrs 15mins and check-in was easy for our 10:50 flight to Bangkok's Don Muang Airport. Flight only takes just over an hour and we were at baggage reclaim by 12:20. Taxi to our apartment in Soi4 Nana easy and not too many traffic jams as is usual. Apartment OK and settled in at around 4pm.
Popped down to Hilary 1, a bar in Soi4, for one or two beers before eating. The waitresses were all over Jack.... I'm jealous! The difference in having a child in tow in this part part of Bangkok is considerable. Behaving oneself and going back to the apartment early is a bitter pill to swallow but that's part of the deal I guess.
TOP: En-route to Phuket Airport in the mini-bus taxi.
CENTRE LEFT: Phuket Airport departures.
CENTRE RIGHT: On board Air Asia's Boeing777; flight FD3042 bound for Bangkok.
BOTTOM LEFT: Goodbye Phuket.
BOTTOM RIGHT: Shuttle bus into Don Muang Airport.
FRIDAY 2nd OCTOBER: Down to quite a good breakfast but a non day for me. Very overcast with rumbling thunder and occasional downpours until early afternoon when it cleared. I say a non day for me as Aom took Jack to visit her friend Em who has an apartment near Asok, not far from Nana. This left me alone in the apartment reading and doing puzzles. Not really worth going out on my own; in any case I had the apartment access card and door key so couldn't have gone too far. Too early to go to a bar for me and my days of chatting to bar girls would only land me in trouble.
It was after 6pm when Aom finally arrived back with Jack as she'd spent at least 45mins in a taxi just to travel under 2 miles the Bangkok traffic was so bad. Anyway we just popped down the road to a local restaurant for dinner.
ABOVE: A visit to Hilary 1 Bar in Soi 4. Jack's taken a fancy to beer.... no not really none was imbibed.
SATURDAY 3rd OCTOBER: Rumbling thunder greeted the morning until after breakfast. By noon it had cleared so we walked along to Soi8 to a massage shop we've used before. The idea was for me to have a foot massage whilst Aom waited with baby Jack but some.of the ladies offered to look after him so she could also have a massage.
Following this we stayed in Soi 8 for a spot of lunch. Atom had a problem.with one her big-toe nails so we dropped into a nail salon in Sukhumvit Rd for some remedial attention.
Short doss back at the apartment and out again. Again, we called in to Hilary 1 and had several beers. Jack, as last time, was the absolute star of the show being carried around from girl to girl. We didn't want to keep him out until much after dark so we vacated the bar and picked a selection of delicious foods from the street sellers. You cannot go wrong buying food from them. It's generally excellent and, of course, it's very very cheap. Took the food back to the apartment and dined. Did some basic packing for the off tomorrow.
Tuk-tuks on the Bangkok roads; passengers and cargo.
SUNDAY 4th OCTOBER: Last day in Thailand.
Breakfast at 07:30 and got stuck into packing the cases. That done we had the rest of the day until around 16:00 to do what we wanted.
First off was a trip to Klongtoey Market which is a huge market selling mainly fresh produce, be it fish, meats, vegetables, spices, fruit, etc. She did find what she wanted here and ended up with bags and bags of different dried fishy things to bring back to UK where the same items cost a bomb by comparison. Klongtoey Market is an absolute madhouse of a place. It's crowded, unbelievably hot and the whole place is manic with cartloads of produce being barrowed about and market vendors plying their various trades. What makes the place even more crazy is that idiots take their motorcycles and scooters into and along the narrow alleyways. How this is permitted is beyond me; it's plain bloody stupid.... but that's Thailand.
ABOVE: Examples of Klongtoey Market's huge variety of fresh produce, and below is a movie of part of the market.
Getting a taxi back to Nana was a bit of a drag and after ages we did get one. Once back in the apartment it was a case of dropping off our purchases and going out again. We still had 3 hours left so we got the Omni free taxi to Sukhumvit Road and walked along to Soi 8.
Aom was very kind to me and offered to look after Jack whilst I had a final foot massage. This was followed by a final Chang (only the one) in a nearby bar-restaurant. It was so hot with intermittent rain that we caught a tuk-tuk back from Soi 8 back to Soi 4 [see movie below].
OK, now it was time to get the luggage and baggage downstairs and ready ourselves for the off. This time we were treated to a free limousine car to Suvarnabhumi Airport (BKK) courtesy of the apartment's management.
Arrived at Suvarnabhumi well before time and well before check-in was supposed to open. In the event, we'd only sat down for 10 minutes when I wandered over to the Emirates check-in and asked if could drop our cases off early. "No problem" was the response.
Once free of our stuff it was a case of going down a level and finding a restaurant which was quickly achieved.
No problems through the usual exit farce and, as usual at Suvarnabhumi, there were massive queues at the passport control and, as usual, lots of un-staffed desks.
Flight to Dubai on a massive Airbus 380/800 went well and at Dubai we had time to pick up a couple of duty-frees; in my case it was some Ardbeg single-malt.
Flight #2 to Manchester left on time and apart from being somewhat bumpy in places arrived only a little late. Didn't manage to catch much sleep; God I hate these long-haul flights.
Passport control at UK Border was a doddle hardly any queue and baggage reclaim too was relatively easy. Only delay was our friend Andy who got caught up in traffic, but the wait was only 30 minutes... oh yes, and it was p***ing down with rain at good-old Manchester and so cold.
Back home by 08:45 and began the jet-lag therapy.
Well that's the end of this blog. Because we have family living in Thailand visits to the country will be a regular occurrence. In future visits we'll be able to leave Jack with his Grandparents for a spell leaving Aom and I time to travel the country at will. We'll be able to do things like the jungle elephant trek and the bamboo rafting we would have liked to have done. Kids eh! Don't you just love them?
Yes, actually!
