Good morning, and how are you doing today? I hope you are having a beautiful day
Now today I am taking you from the busy streets of Bangkok to the beautiful
beaches of Bali
But first I have to get through all this traffic to the airport
I hope I've left enough time, I always underestimate in Bangkok.
Now Bangkok is served by two airports you've got Suvarnabhumi which is in the
east has got a nice train that goes direct to the airport to the center and
crossing the BTS so it's quite easy and time efficient to get to but only the
national carriers fly there like Etihad Airways, Singapore Air, Thai Airways they
fly into there, if you fly with the more budget airlines around Asia you have to
go to the airport in the north Don Mueang airport. Now it's quite a bit
far north, there's no train station there yet they aren't building a train or line
there but that's been in progress for years so you have to get a taxi.
So I ordered mine at 8:00 a.m. this morning and I have
one, eight nine ten eleven, three and a half hours to get to the airport get
through the queues, check in and get my flight. I've been going hmm maybe ten minutes
and haven't covered the first kilometer yet.
I think it's something like 35
kilometers so, and I've taken the expressway so I paid the toll, there's
two routes you can take to Don Mueang from the center, there's the one via the
main streets and then there's a toll expressway, I usually take the toll
expressway because you do get there a bit quicker, but this morning the traffic
is not looking pretty. Does it ever?
We've made it to the airport! Made it to Don Mueang.
Now apart from....
sorry noisy bus
Apart from leaving plenty time to get to the
airport leave plenty time at the airport
the queues can sometimes be terrible
here and all the desks always seem to be under staffed for check in. And then you
queue for immigration, then you get barely got time for toilet and coffee
but hopefully, I hope, today I have I've still got two hours so I have left
plenty of time, queues allowing. Let's get in there and get checked in.
It's my lucky day, queues two three four five and six all have long queues and by
comparison, my check-in in section one, quite short should maybe take me
thirty minutes to get through, and that's a short queue here so...
might have time for coffee on the other side, definitely need the toilet
Now, a little bit of time to relax. Got through the check-in queue, it "only", I can't believe
I'm saying this, took 30 minutes queues were quite short for my
flight which was great.
Been through security, oh no then through passport control, then through
security, queues for everything, but from arriving at the airport to getting through
to this point and getting my coffee and a toilet break took me forty-five
minutes which is, I would say quite quick for Don Mueang, so I would leave in an hour, an
hour and a half at least if you want a relaxing, to be not too stressed, now time
to enjoy my coffee, "have a nice day".
So, been to the toilet, had some coffee, now time to make my way
to the gate, always leave time to get your gate because, as usual, mine's the
furthest to walk, although I'm cheating and using a walkway, it's quite good and
healthy to actually walk around an airport, but some of them are quite big
but it's nice to stretch your legs before you are cooped up in the plane for
I think I'm going to be four hours on this flight that's Bangkok to Denpasar in
Bali.
So, taking it easy, flight should be
boarding about now-ish, so I'll go and join the scrum of people who will all leap up
and rush forward, even though there is a seat for everybody who's checked in, as if there
isn't, and then enjoy my flight.
Now a quick tip for you for security, when you put your bags on the plane you
obviously put all your clothes and all your non valuables in your big bag that you
check-in, and most people re obsessed with locking it and wrapping it up, making
sure that's safe but it should be just clothes and nothing valuable, that means
all your valuables, your wallet your passport your spending money your
cameras and everything is in your hand luggage. Now that is far more important
to secure especially on long haul flights where you might be taking a nap
or busy flights, like the one I'm on today, where you might not be sitting
close to your bag in the overhead locker
so remember a couple a little, take a
couple of padlocks so you can lock and secure your bag that goes in the
overhead thing so you're not worrying about it on the journey, and unfortunately
in all airlines everywhere, theft from overhead lockers from other passengers
is becoming more prevalent
And we are boarding. 10 minutes after we were supposed to take off but
we are on our way.
I made it to my seat.
And it's a busy flight, looks like it's gonna be full
but I did get my bag in the locker overhead.
- thank you very much