On Thursday I was due to return to Sweden after my trip to Thailand. This didn't happen. A volcano erupted on Iceland spewing ash into the atmosphere and causing air space to be shut down over Europe.
My flight was cancelled and I marched out of the airport in a long line of disgruntled passengers, bussed back into Bangkok and put up in a hotel.
Three nights later and I am still here.
The hotel is a SAS hotel so all of the guests here have the same problem. A mixture of Swedes, Danes and Norwegians remain grounded and nobody knows when we will be able to get home. Experts see no end to the volcanic ejaculation.
We are lucky. Many other airline passengers have been forced to finance their own accommodation. Our hotel rooms are paid for by SAS and all our food is included. A plentiful buffet is provided at breakfast, lunch and dinner. It feels like an Atlantic cruise - with no certainty of when it will end.
You can tell how long somebody has been here by the amount of food they pile on their plate. Those who are newly-arrived stack the food high onto their plates, returning frequently to the buffet. If it's free, then it's good.
Those of us who have been here longer have developed a more restrained approach to the food - for us, moderation is the best policy. Since we've understood that we don't know how long we'll be here we have also understood we can't eat an endless amount of deep-fried spring rolls and cream cakes.
How will this adventure end? When will we return to Swedish soil? How fat will we be when we get off that plane in Sweden?
Watch this space.....
Have just made it home from Thailand. Our airline, Eva air was not available for help and advice (they were not answering the phone either) so we went to the airport and walked from counter to counter asking for anything going to Europe, Turkey or even Dubai. Eventually we found two seats business class on Air Berlin and put it on our credit card. It was very scary as we had no extra cash and cards only long suffering Tesco credit card, but it did go through. We were on the last flight to Northern Europe (Dusseldorf) from Bangkok. When we reached Iraq Dusseldorf closed down also but my now favourite airline Air Berlin did land us in Munich from where we travelled by bus, taxi, ferry, car and finally tube to get home. All of this with no cash, apart from 5000 bhat, which we could not exchange and hence no food or drinks. Haven't slept for three days but made it home!
ReplyDelete