World Travel

I'm off to China and Thailand in December. I will go a day earlier as I want to and will be sitting around for a full day, doing nothing -- partly airfare, partly shitty connections. The joys of the International traveller. The first quote I got from our travel office took me from Stuttgart to Frankfurt to Bangkok to Guangzhou. My first reaction was "You have got to be joking!" So was my second reaction. The only way how I can get from Frankfurt to Guangzhou in one hop is with Lufthansa. I could have gone from Stuttgart with Air France via Paris or KLM via Amsterdam, but they all share their flights with South China Air. I used them before and -- trust me -- you do not want to use them, if you can avoid it. Especially not on a 12 hour flight. So, I could only go Friday night with Lufthansa, which unfortunately gets me there on Saturday afternoon. Sunday will be boring.

And another drawback: Lufthansa uses Boeing. The Lufthansa Boeing fleet is a little older, so the inflight entertainment sucks. Overhead projector, no choice. Bleh.

If I manage to get a multiple entry visa into China, I might go to Hong Kong for the day. But it's doubtful. I am way too lazy, will be grumpy from jetlag and not interested in shopping enough to put up with a two hour train ride one way for it.

The hop from Guangzhou to Bangkok will be with Egypt Air. It was the cheapest option and it will give me a nice nostalgic feeling. Ok, service won't be so hot. But it's only a three hour flight, so I don't care.

And because I am a dork, I will fly back from Bangkok with Swiss Air via Zurich -- they use Airbus, which has individual screens in the front seat with a bigger movie selection. Yeah, silly, I know.

Hi there, I joined the community a little while ago and as there haven't been many posts yet, I feel a little unsure what kind of posts would be acceptable. So I am just going to nilly-willy cross-post my regular posts about my trip. Mods, if this is not ok, please let me know! I am also unsure about tagging, sorry if I am not doing it right...

Anyway, so I am in Bangkok for a week...

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I had a lazy and long breakfast yesterday. Got up at 9am, had some coffee and a sandhich, then surfed the net for two hours. Rushed through grabbing all the bits and bobs I need for the trip -- gazillions of chargers and cables and documents -- and pulled out some clothes for hot weather. I managed to restrict myself to two pairs of shoes, 2 skirts on top of the trousers I was wearing for the flight and 7 tops. I even managed to squeeze all that into my small suitcase. I am probably going to freeze my legs off this week in the office, if the a/c ends up being really low. But I have no interest in running around the factory in +30C and over 80% humidity in long trousers. *note to self: buy some decent knee-length shorts*

I checked-in online Friday night. Tactical error: Never choose seats in the row behind the row with baby bassinets! The two babies in that row were luckily pretty quiet. They slept through most of the night, same as most everybody else.

Turkish Airways had no baggage drop-off for people that had already checked-in, which pissed me off, but couldn't be helped. I piped down eventually, only to get annoyed again when they had computer problems. It actually took 40 minutes for me to reach the front of the line to drop off my tiny suitcase. Argh, the joys of travelling! One the plus side I had entered my state of travel zen and was relaxed enough not to bitch at the clerk when I eventually got to her. Not her fault anyway.

The flight to Instanbul was ok. Someone in my row had ordered a veggie meal and they couldn't figure out who, so I had it. I actually forgot to tell the travel agent to book a lactose free meal for me. They showed "Predators" on the overhead projector, which was entertaining enough.

On the flight from Instanbul to Bangkok the seat next to me was empty. Score! I had Turkish dolmas for dinner -- very good! -- and watched "Clash of the Titans" -- too long and more boring than I expected. Put on a masque and earplugs and slept almost until breakfast, which was a nasty egg spinach concoction. Yugh. When will airlines stop serving eggs? It just doesn't work and is either too glibbery or like eating rubber. And it rarely tastes like eggs anyway. The coffee was hideous, which I hadn't expected from a Turkish airline.

It took over an hour from the airport to the hotel, traffic was a bitch. I checked in and took a three hour nap, had room service and watched some TV. I am not sure when I will be picked up tomorrow morning, so I am aiming for an 8am pick-up.

My cold is pretty much gone. My nose is still bothering me a little and I feel bleary eyed and have a slight headache. But that could be from travelling as well.

One good thing: The hotel has HBO, which I am watching right now...