I think I told you that the total time of travel from Greenwood, Arkansas to Chiang Mai, Thailad was 48 hours, but I would like to share more of the trip with you.
We drove to the Fort Smith airport and waited for the first leg of our journey. We actually went through a pretty good security check. I showed my magic card that gave information on my pacemaker implant, plus my ID bracelet and they skirted around some of the xraying. Apparently, the security check was good enough that we didn’t have to do more until we were in Bangkok, Thailand.
This was a short one hour flight to the Dallas/Fort Worth airport, where we waited again. We had to do a lot of walking we weren’t expecting to GET to the railway or whatever they call it that will whisk you to the next gate. It was a bit much for two old recently sick people.
We then flew the LONG flight – 14 hours – from DFW to Doha, Qatar. This was in the lap of luxury, our first ever business class flight. We had good food, comfortable recliners that eased into all kinds of positions for maximum comfort, including the makeup into a bed by the attendants, with a nice pillow and the best blanket I have ever slept under. I think I showed you a picture or two of the seats we had, with my husband and I sitting side by side and across from our son with the partition removed. We basically slept most of the flight after enjoying the amenities.
All of the airports were nice, but this one at Doha, Qatar, was spectacular.
This was followed by another pretty long flight, from Doha, Qatar to Bangkok, Thailand. Another nice business class flight, not as nice as the first one, but nicer than any other flight I’ve taken in my life, 2nd only to the one to Doha.
We were met in Bangkok by a team of experts hired by our son to meet us, handle the baggage change, customs check, security check, and all the other things required when landing in the main hub city in a country. Even with all that my husband’s energy gave out and we needed to find a wheelchair to get where we needed to go.
We left the Bangkok airport only minutes before the earthquake. The pilot came on saying that we would have to turn around and return to Bangkok because the Chiang Mai airport had closed. Our poor son was then trying to figure out what he would do for accommodations there, booking a new flight to Chiang Mai, meals, and more. The pilot came on again saying the Chiang Mai airport had reopened and we were resuming our flight there. Whew!
Now we find we MAY have to fly to Laos to the Thai embassy there, to get a magical stamp on our passports that the banks here will like so they will let us open bank accounts. Then we should be able to take the bank account information to the visa people and get a retirement visa. Fingers crossed!
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