We are off to the airport early this morning. Our flight is at 10:40a, but it has been late every day, and Ed has been trying in vain to change to the flight that leaves at 10:10 just to give us a little more leeway in Bangkok. It’s not worked because we are flying on points tickets, and no one can change them for us. So, we figure we will give it a shot at the airport and see what we can do. So, we arrive 3 hours early, and sadly, there is still nothing we can do. The agent is really nice, but he can’t change the tickets either – and tells us we’ll have plenty for our transfer. But he does move us up to seats closer to the door, which is really nice and may be incredibly helpful if we are in a crunch.
Oh well – nothing we can do wait. We go to the lounge, hang out long enough to watch 2 whole sets of travelers come and go,and long enough to figure we deserve a beer – which we have around 10am - then leave to go to our gate, only to find out our flight is even further delayed. The gate agent is a trainee, who tells us the flight is 1 hour late. Crud. We tell her we have a tight connection, which she looks up and says, well you’ll have at least 35 minutes. In Bangkok. Argh. She does tell us to tell the flight attendant we have a tight connection and they will help. Any little port in a storm
We go back to the lounge to wait, and finally board our plane at the appointed time. We take off, and do get into Bangkok 1 hour late, leaving us, yes, 35 minutes to traverse the whole terminal, go through security again and make it to our London gate (remembering that they always close the boarding down at least 10 minutes in advance of push back). We do tell the flight attendant we have a tight connection to London, she asks the flight number, then says, they know you’re coming. Ok, maybe that’s a little comforting. Maybe.
We waste no time getting off the plane (thank you Chiang Mai agent for moving us) and haul ass down the concourse, trying not to barrel over people moving too slowly on the moving sidewalk, and finally just giving up on that completely and half jogging down the hallway. We make it to the CIQ transfer area, and run through to security. We throw everything in the bins and try to go through the scanner, when they tell us to take off our shoes. Aw come on! Really! Shit. They are already calling final call for our flight, “Final Boarding” is flashing red on the board and we have to take off our shoes? Geez o’flip! So off come the shoes, thrown on the scanner, not even in bins, we run through the body scan and grab all our stuff as fast as we can. We’re so rushed we don’t even bother with our shoes. The security lady is trying to help, pointing to stuff we still have in the bin – Ed’s phone in particular, and then we are off. Running up the escalator, around the corner – checking signage to make sure we are going the right way, separating a huge group of Chinese business men who are clustered in front of the departure gate sign. We get half way tot he gate and Ed says “I don’t have my phone!” What??!!?? Ok – stop right there!
So, we stop, he empties all his pockets, no phone. We search backpacks, bags, you name it, no phone. Crap. The last thing he remembers is the phone in the bin, and the security guard pointing to it. Oh no! Emergency action needs to be taken – we put on our shoes, I give Ed his passport and send him to the gate, while I shoulder my pack (and like an idiot the extra bag we have with us) and run back to security, running down the up escalator which is fortunately stopped. There are only 2 escalators to security, both going up from security to the gate concourses. I just barely make it down before having to jump the last 2 steps as it is starting to move for passengers coming through security. Grabbing a guard, I explain our predicament and she goes around to every guard and asks if anyone has found a phone – no, no one has. She asks which scanner we came through, and then takes my bags and puts them through the scanner again to see if by chance it is hidden somewhere in there. She is so sweet, but to no avail – there is no phone.
By this point, I’m out of time. I tell her our flight is in final boarding and they are calling last call. She asks which gate, and then calls them and tells them I am on my way – then motions to me to go, go, go! And I go, go, go! Now running full tilt up the escalator, around the corner, down the blasted long concourse – thank God I jog at the gym, at least I have a little bit of training for this, albeit without the freaking 10 pound backpack and 8 pound extra overnight bag. As I am running down the concourse, here comes this little Thai Airways gate agent with the flight sign – Oh God! That is never a good sign! I wave, she frantically waves me on – but now that I’ve seen her, I figure I can walk – oh no, she waves me on with a faster, faster sign.
Run, Forest, run! And I do, the guy at the top of the gate area also is waving me on – I’m it – thank God they held that plane! I run down the stairs to find Ed standing sheepishly with the gate agent. I’m shaking my head I didn’t find it, but he looks at me, and I know…..”you have it?” “Yes,” he replies. It was in his back pocket behind his wallet – where he never puts it – and so when he did the pocket check, he felt his wallet, not the phone. There is no time to be angry, because we are being herded onto the plane – seriously – we are IT! I’m just thanking them profusely for waiting, and Ed is apologizing down the jetway. We make it safely to our seats, which by luck still have the middle empty, and I collapse, wishing with all my heart that we were in business class so I could at least get a glass of water right now! I’d even forgo the wine – I’m parched and we sure didn't have enough time to fill our water bottles!
And of course, we sit on that darn plane for at least another 15 minutes before they push back! We were definitely the last ones on, so who knows what caused the extra delay, but that just added insult to injury!
After that excitement, the rest of the flight goes smoothly and we end up in London right on time, finding the bus to take us to the Hyatt Place easily enough (although it was on a night time schedule and only ran every 30 minutes). We check in, dump our bags then head to the bar to have a light snack of egg rolls and fried chicken wings (which turns out to be a whole heck of a lot more food than we anticipated), then we take our beer and wine up to the room and hit the sack. Our next flight isn’t until noon tomorrow, and we’re excited to be able to sleep the whole night in a comfy bed before flying out all over again!
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