The return home

[Bazle 1,583]

The dreaded return journey home had to be made yesterday. I was flying on the EVA 12:50 flight from Swampy to LHR. I had read about bad queues at Swampy and also wanted to avoid early morning traffic in Patts so booked a taxi for 07:30.

 

TAXI

The taxi was there waiting for me at 07:25 when I looked outside the condo I had been staying at. Cost 860 Baht, including tolls. The car was a not too old Toyota but the driver had aspirations for F1. I should have realised that as soon as I saw the car - a wing-like thing at the back and a racing driving wheel.

 

We got to Swampy in 1hr 5 mins, which included a piss stop for the driver. When we weren't tailgating other vehicles, we were doing between 140 and 160 KPH all the way (I think that is 87 to 100 MPH). I was not amused, particularly as I wasn't in a hurry.

 

EVA check-in

As always seems to be the case, a lot of people arrived to check-in long before the check-in desks opened. They now have a dedicated counter for people who have checked in on-line (more than can be said for LHR) and the queue there was substantially shorter than at the regular counters. So if you fly with EVA, do yourself a favour and check-in on-line.

 

Passport control

When I had last flown out of Swampy (mid-December), they had the snake queueing system - just one line of people taking their turns for a desk to come free. This always seems to me to be the fairest system. Unfortunately, they have reverted to individual queues for each of the desks.

 

Needless to say, the Chinese again refuse to be civilised when it comes to queueing. They put someone in each queue, and when the first one to get to about 2 people away from being dealt with, that person acquires a whole load of friends who abandon the other queues. It reminded me of being at school.

 

The flight home

Took off about half an hour late and arrived about an hour late. Uneventful journey - thankfully, sufficiently far away from the screaming brats for them to be a problem. Watched a couple of movies - Burlesque (totally crap storyline, music would probably have been good if I hadn't been listening through airline headphones) and The Kings Speech (good).

[pcdodger 2]

Welcome back to reality Bazle.

 

You will soon wish you were elbowing the Chinese queue jumpers and jumping in mad taxi`s to do it all again.

 

I`m four months back and fighting LOS withdrawal

[Bazle 1,583]

Welcome back to reality Bazle.

 

You will soon wish you were elbowing the Chinese queue jumpers and jumping in mad taxi`s to do it all again.

 

I`m four months back and fighting LOS withdrawal

I'm booked for early June for 4 weeks. Just have to keep my sanity until then

[villayouth 37]

shame i missed you . you know you love me . i had a nightmare trip home too spent the whole flight from dubai to brum in the kahzi throwing up my ring

[joekicker 53]

We got to Swampy in 1hr 5 mins, which included a piss stop for the driver. When we weren't tailgating other vehicles, we were doing between 140 and 160 KPH all the way (I think that is 87 to 100 MPH). I was not amused, particularly as I wasn't in a hurry.

 

Consider offering the driver a handsome tip if he takes MORE than 1 hour and 45 minutes. Generally speaking, that's what I have done for a very long time, starting with my second trip to Pattaya in 1971 (back then, three hours was my target for safe speeds), and it always works - or nearly always anyhow.

 

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