We had fun in the morning trying to get taxis from the hotel - Scott ordered two taxis, but the hotel people wanted us to use the hotel car (more expensive), so they didn't order any taxis for us, hoping we'd get anxious at the passing time and just use their car. Scott kept looking at them, and they just looked uncomfortable, then eventually a porter took pity on up, and led us through to the back of the hotel, and got two taxis for us from there! (We weren't really on a street where you could get your own taxi from the front of the hotel.)
We got to Suvarnabhumi Airport OK (though I did NOT enjoy us going 90 miles an hour with no seat belts on!), but we knew that our flight to Hong Kong wasn't going to land till about 15 minutes after our connecting fight to Dubai was taking off. This was due to an Emirates plane crash landing in Dubai a couple of days previously, which was messing up lots of Emirates flights still.
The kids and I hung around for ages, while Scott spoke to an Emirates employee to see if we could switch to another flight direct to Dubai, meaning we could miss out our dodgy Hong Kong connection altogether. They had to wait to see how full that flight was, before giving us permission but eventually it was all OK'd.
Finally checking in our luggage onto our new flight!
Travelling through Bangkok Airport.
We walked to the lake area, and hung around in the hopes that there would be a fountain display on soon. There were loads of people around, and it was a pleasant atmosphere, though the temperature was around 40°c!
We were delighted when the fountains and music started, and I was completely enraptured by the whole thing! It was literally one of the loveliest things I've seen! It was like the Bellagio Fountains in Las Vegas, but much better. The music was great and the scale and power of the fountains was superb! We all just loved being there - the late night heat and busy atmosphere made it all so un-English and different.
Harry and Scott messing around in front of a giant advertising screen.
We then walked through the mall to the Metro station and got a train back to the airport.
We got food at our 'regular' Burger King (though Lucy had a chicken salad from another place), but were most put out that our usual table was taken! Ha!
The flight back to London was about 7 hours long, and I actually slept for some of it. I didn't know till later that Lucy had been sick during the flight. It's the first time she's had any vomiting since being diagnosed Type 1 diabetic in 2012 and luckily it didn't have too much effect on her blood sugars. She thinks she was sick because of the salad she had at the airport.
We landed in London at about 6am local time. It was funny seeing sunrise, having not had a real night.
We got through the airport fine and picked up our car easily enough, then Scott drove us home. Happily, everything was fine at home, and it was nice having everywhere so tidy (after my cleaning up for Meg and Dave using the house while we were away). I think we all went straight to bed!
I was really happy to be home and to have food I felt safe eating again, but it was a pretty incredible holiday! With hindsight we have no regrets whatsoever about any aspects of the holiday (that we had control over!), and wouldn't have done anything differently. What a heck of an experience!! In my journal I summed it up by saying ''We survived Asia! Crazy, hot holiday! Wires, mopeds, sweat! Quite an experience...'' I did say that I had run out my desire to go abroad again, but at the time of writing this, 6 months later, I'm over that!
In the evening we went to church for Ryan Garrick's mission farewell party. He's assigned to the Birmingham mission. It was nice to hang out with everyone and chat, though I really felt for Clare who will miss Ryan a lot, and it made me realise probably for the first time, just how wrenching it will be when my own kids go on missions.
No comments:
Post a Comment