So, we're up at 5:30. In the AM!. Showered, dressed, grab our stuff and we're out on the street at 6:05. Still in the AM! It's snowing. There's 4-5 cm of snow on the ground and a complete dearth of taxis. Then a mini-rush, where 3 taxis creep past us, already occupied. We start walking towards the main street. The street looks almost pretty. The snow has softened the edges of the buildings and the streetlights cast a soft orange glow over everything. Looks, however, are deceiving. The manhole covers are treacherously slippery and I almost go arse up as my foot slips across the icy steel.
A taxi appears and we flag it down. The driver breaks and despite travelling fairly slowly, manages to skid for 2-3 metres before he stops. We lob the bags in the boot and pile in. "To the aiport and don't spare the horses" we demand. Not really. Mel shows the driver a piece of paper with 'Beijing Airport' written in Chinese (such a clever lady!). The driver nods and we're away. We move fairly slowly becasue of the snow. We don't mind as the taxi is an red one, which means that it's an old one and nearing the end of its life. We had hoped for a green and yellow one as they are newer. Beggars can't be choosers I suppose. It's warm though.
There isn't much traffic about - it's only 6:15, but the snow has slowed things down a lot. The drive to the airport should take about 15-20 minutes at this time of day. Today it takes almost an hour. Not dramas though as we arrive at the check-in counter to find pretty short lines. We're all checked in 20 minutes later and head off to go through customs/immigration etc..
And then the fun begins. After waiting for three hours we're told that our flight, scheduled for 8:30, has been cancelled due to technical problems. So we (all 230 of us) have to go back through immigration and have our departure stamps cancelled. Then we're told we can go to a hotel until everything is sorted. A cry of "no, no, no" goes up from the passengers and the airport guy starts to look worried. Bravely, he tries to explain what is happening, as well as encouraging us to go to the hotel. The crowd is unanimous in its defiance. People start to bombard the poor bugger with all kinds of questions; how will I make my connection? What are you doing to do to help? etc. etc..All completely valid questions. Unfortunately, AIrport Guy doesn't have any answers.
In the meantime, Mel has decided she'll go directly to the Thai office and see what she can do, while I keep an eye on Airport Guy in case something happens. There aren't any seats close by so I lean against a wall and watch an increasingly frustrated Airport Guy fend off questions from people who getting more and more worked up. Eventually he says he's going to the Thai office to find out what he can. The crowd decides to follow him. So 200-odd people follow him to the lift. It takes about 15 minutes for everyone to get in the lift - not all at once though! Things are much quieter now and I have found a seat.
Mel calls as soon as I sit down. We, along with 3-4 other people, have managed to find seats on a Dragon AIr flight to Hong Kong, then seats on a Thai flight to Bangkok. The flight leaves at 2:10. It's now 12:35. We have to somehow get our gear off the original Thai flight onto the Dragon Air flight. I think to myself "the flight was cancelled almost an hour ago. Why hasn't it been done already?"
Another airport guy takes to the oversized baggage area to get our bags. We give him our luggage tags and describe our bags. We wait 20 minutes or so. No sign of our stuff, so we discuss going to the gate without our bags. Mel mentions the idea to the other people with us and they agree. We ask Airport Guy #2 if we can go to the gate and have our bags put on the next Thai flight to Bangkok. He thinks this is a good idea too and our little group heads off to the Dragon Air check-in counter.
Once there, AIrport Guy #2 explains that we'll have 1 or 2 hours in Hong Kong to make the connection to Bangkok. He also tells us that the flight from Hong Kong will arrive around the same time as the flight our bags will be on.
Also at the counter is a belligerent Norwegian guy and his wife. He is demanding boarding passes for the Hong Kong flight, which the check-in guy won't give him without the printout that shows they have seats on the flight. The printout is with another airport guy who is getting tickets issued for the flight to Bangkok. The Norwegian guy yells at the check-in guy again. The check-in guy is unhappy and tells him, again, that he can't have a boarding pass until the printout turns up. As the Norwegian guy turns to say something to his wife, Mel tells the check-in guy "thank you for helping us". The Norwegian guy gets the message and shuts up:)
AIrport Guy #3 comes back eventually.He has the print out, as well as a 'ticket' for the Thai flight. We are all issued with boarding passes. The Turkish-American guy with us, Drogan, asks if we'll be able to get help to go through immigration quickly. He is told "no". We get to the line and try to choose the shortest one. Once in line, myself and the Filipino guy, Roderick, wait in line while Drogan and Mel go off to speak to the staff about getting through quickly. Again, they're told "no".
The line moves fairly quickly and we get through to the security check. This is pretty quick too and off we run to Gate 17, where our plane is waiting. It's 1:50 when we get to the departure gate. No problem though becasue the flight from Hong Kong hasn't landed yet because of the weather. We find a seat and start to eat our complimentary sandwiches. They are extremely crap - cardboard like white bread with a yellowish substance between, which may or may not be cheese! At least they were free.
While sitting down we start calculating how much time we have before making the connection in Hong Kong becomes impossible. We figure that if we take-off around 4-4:30, we'll have about 45 minutes too make it.
We settle in for the wait. Mel starts her holiday book. I start on the newspapers. Thankfully they're from Hong Kong. Papers from Hong Kong are significantly more substantial than the China Daily (which is quite possibly the crappest newspaper in the world!).
We break up the reading by going to look at the departure board or talking to the staff to see if they have any news. I look outside to find that it's stopped snowing. The flight leaving from the next gate starts to board. This gives us hope.
Just after 3:00 I go for another wander. I stop to look outside. While I'm standing there, one of the airport staff comes over and tells me that the flight from Hong Kong has landed. She adds that we can board in about 30 minutes. Maybe! I go back to our seats and tell Mel. All the foreigners near by cock their ears and listen in. One guys asks if it's true. I say "maybe".
Announcements starts and there is activity around they gate. We're told that we'll be boarding at 3:55. Almost immediately, people start lining up. We stay seated and chat to Roderick about our chances. I think we'll make it. The others are not so
confident. Perhaps I'm not really either. Just hopeful.
Finally they start boarding. We wait until the line is shorter. Once on the plane, the pilot tells us that we still have to wait for clearance from air traffic control to take off. He says this will happen "hopefully in 20 minutes". Eventually we take off. It's 4:55. We try to remain positive but I think all of us are probably not so confident.
Drogan tells us he will ask the flight crew if there is any chance of us being allowed to get off the plane first. Later on he tells us that he asked and was told "no". We're still hopeful though as Roderick called the Thai office in Hong Kong before we left and was told someone from Thai would meet us off the plane with boarding passes so we can get to the next gate as quickly as possible.
We land at Hong Kong and thankfully disembark pretty quickly. We are dismayed to find that there is no one from Thai to meet us! Lots of people from Cathay and China AIr, but no one from Thai. We sprint off to the transit desk. Again we find no one from Thai. We find the departure board and discover that our flight is leaving from gate 40. We sprint off again only to be to be halted by airport security who won't let us go any further without boarding passes.
We explain the situation and Security Guy calls someone on his walkie-talkie. The someone shows up and is told what's going on. He calls someone on his walkie-talkie. He then tells us that we need to go back to the transit desk. We do so and explain the situation again. Luckily for us there's a guy who understands our problem. Despite having actually finished work for the day, he tells the woman behind the counter to issue us with boarding passes. We hand over our passports. We get our boarding passes and follow the guy the guy who helped us through the security check and on to the departure gate. Fortunately the gate is close by.
We get to the gate and quietly celebrate our success. Boarding passes and passports checked, we triumphantly walk on to the plane. We are very pleased with ourselves and even though Mel and I don't have seats together, we're happy in the knowledge we'll be arriving in Bangkok in couple of hours.
Frustratingly it turns out that we didn't need to run. For 5 or 10 minutes after we sat down, there are still people getting on the plane. It doesn't worry me too much, but a Thai woman decided to sit in someone else's seat which creates a funny little scene.
It turn's out that Mel is sitting in the Thai lady's seat. No problem there as Mel's seat is the next seat. Mel stands up to move seats. The guy in the seat next to Mel's also stands up to let Thai Lady in. While doing this, he makes some comments to Thai Lady about sitting in the correct seat. She take exception to this and starts to pout and carry on like a petulant child, saying "don't get angry with ME! You have no right to be angry with ME! NO! You have no right to get angry with ME! I'm NOT sitting next to you. I don't want to sit next to you. I don't like the look of your face". With that she she turns and storms off to find another seat. The guy starts laughing at her and says "you're funny". I figure it worked out ok as Mel and the guy get share 3 seats. Thai Lady obviously found another seat as we didn't see her again.
Two and half hours later we land at Bangkok's spanking new airport. I'm absolutely gutted to discover we have to get on a bus to get to the departure gate! My frustration grows as we pass empty gate after empty gate. Eventually we arrive and head off to find our bags which were supposed to be arriving on another Thai flight from Beijing. After a little confusion and to-ing and fro-ing we find out which carousel our bags are on. We say our goodbyes to Roderick and Drogan and wait for our bags.
We find one bag after 10 minute or so. No sign of the bigger one though. We keep waiting and then I notice the sign has changed from 'first bag' to 'last bag'. It seems the big bag is missing which is a right pain in the arse as that's the one with all our clothes and toiletries in it. Eighteen and half hours after leaving our apartment we are feeling pretty crusty. And probably smell too! We ask someone where we need to go to find out what happened the missing bag. We're told to go to Lost & Found. I know where this is as I had a little baggage issue on my way through to Beijing from NZ in November.
We explain our problem to the staff at Lost & Found. They begin the process of finding out what happened. After 10 minutes or so we've had no luck, so we ask if we can head off to our hotel and get our bag sent on to the hotel when they locate it. The guy agrees and takes down our names, the name of our hotel, the key to the padlock and a description of the bag. We then head off to the arrival area hoping that our ride to the hotel is still waiting for us.
After a bit of searching we find our man and are led outside to their car. A 30 minute drive later we find ourselves at the hotel and we check-in. We explain our luggage issues and go up to our room. A quickish shower and we're in bed at 1:15AM. Completely knackered but stoked to be in Bangkok. Even it is 20 hours after we left our apartment in Beijing.
PS: The rest of our time in Thailand was fantastic!
PPS: I tried to put some photos up but it didn't work. I'll try again soonish. Promise!
