You forgot your boarding pass

Posted by Chris

We all woke up early for our 8:20 flight and took a metered cab (without using the meter) to the airport. I was sad because I had to miss out on the special Thai breakfast dish I had already ordered the previous day (so special you have to order a day in advance). We checked our bags and proceeded to wait to be boarded. Heidi was sweating because we had a connecting flight to Phuket with only a 30 minute stopover. The lady at the check-in desk said we should be ok, if we run.

The boarding time came and passed and there was still no plane. The lady eventually said over the loudspeaker that there would be a 20 minute delay. We went and saw her and changed the connecting flight to 4pm which was a pain as we would have to kill so many hours at the Bangkok airport. At least the change was free due to the Air Asia screw up.

About another half hour or so passed as an angry crowd accumulated at the boarding desk. Another announcement finally came over that a new plane was being flown in as the old was buggered (wherever it was). The new estimated time of departure was 11:35. We didn’t particularly mind and proceeded to go cain some overpriced beers at the airport sports bar (We didn’t even mind that it was only about 9 in the morning).


A few Sydney priced beers later and we made our way back to the boarding gate. We waited and waited and waited with no information at all as to what was happening. Eventually I noticed other people getting on rival carrier flights and after some investigation it turned out there was a good chance the flight would not be coming. People were getting mad, the staff were bloody useless, and numbers were thinning out as people caught other carrier flights to different airports (without their checked-in luggage) or left.

When we finally managed to talk to an Air Asia staff member, she said unofficially we should just cancel both our flights and rebook on another airline. Heidi and I checked with Thai Airways and they had a direct Phuket service, which we just missed at 12:50, but there would be another one tomorrow. The price was only slightly more than the original flights but Thai Airways is way better and the journey would be a lot quicker. I booked us the new flights, Heidi got us a refund on the original flights, and Ryan and Danae collected our bags from the carousel.

As we left the airport we ran into the cabbie that drove us around for the day, so we had him drive us to a new hotel I had quickly found on the internet. When we got to the new hotel, they didn’t have any spare double rooms, but luckily our cabbie new of a better place around the corner. The place was nice and at only 790 baht per room, the price was right.


We went for to explore the new area and stopped at two pubs and even found a new wireless card for the laptop (Yay, and price not much more than home). We tried a new beer called “Cheers” but it was so damn warm everyone had to have ice, the real Thai way :) Ryan, Danae and I decided it was time to treat ourselves to a massage and went downstairs. It was about 200 baht and was pretty darn awesome. Dinner was at a local eatery across the road and packed with locals. Mains were a very cheap 40 baht and delish.