Day 999 - Perth, Australia – Bangkok, Thailand

Day 999 - 2nd March 2008 +7:00 GMT

Well it’s our final day in Australia the year has flown past and it has been wonderful, we have made so many good friends here. It was kind of a weird morning as all our belongs have gone so we are already living out of our rucksacks. Clinton turned up around 2pm to take us to the airport and when we arrived we checked in and got a bite to eat and sat around and waited. The boarding was delayed by 30 minutes as the plane had come in late. We eventually boarded the Thai Airways flight TG998 to Bangkok and was little bit disappointed to find that there was no personal in flight entertainment just a TV in the middle of the aisle which I had to strain to see, the service was very good though and also the food.

Our Plane Boeing 747-300 Flight TG 998

The flight was just under 7 hours so it was not so bad. When we arrived in Thailand we were a little nervous as usual about getting into the country through their immigration and customs. But we just smiled at the camera and passed through immigration picked up our bags and walked through the green channel with no problems at all. The Airport in Bangkok is brand new and only opened at the end of last year. It is a huge airport and still full of workers finishing bits off and this was now midnight. We fought off all the people who wanted to take us into the city in their private cars for only 1000 baht (which is a minibus shared with 12 others) anyway we joined the Taxi queue which was stretched out about 200 metres along the front of the terminal luckily the line moved very quickly. We got in the Taxi to find out that the driver did not speak English which was very naive of me to presume he would. Anyway he sped away not dropping below the 120 mark all the way to the hotel. The driving here is crazy and I thought Australia was bad, most cars are driving in the middle of two lanes and trucks are cruising along doing over 100 with the open backs stuffed full of people. Anyway we got to the hotel in around 25 minutes and the taxi driver was shocked when I tried to pay with 1000 baht (Thailand’s biggest note, approx £15/$30). The problem for him was he did not have enough change to give me, so he gave me what he had and we left it like that. The hotel porters ran out to the Taxi to open the doors and gave us the usual Asian bow. Then took our bags and we checked in (and got some change for tips). Our bags were delivered to our room on the 12th Floor very promptly and I was told a 20 baht tip is generous so I gave the guy 40 and he seemed very pleased. The room was lovely with a massive bed, a bathroom with bath and shower, big TV, mini-bar and three telephones, a desk, small table and a couple of chairs. Next to the bed is the usual switch box which contains a switch for everything in the room, radio, alarm clock, TV every light etc... Anyway it was now about 1am local time or 3am Perth time it had been a long day since we were up at 7am. So we ordered some room service, ate and watched Everton vs Portsmouth live then some Junk American TV and crashed out.