…

I know this is 3 weeks ago but I need I wrap up the Thailand Laos Trip. I hate waiting to leave somewhere. I don’t like long haul flights but if you want to travel this is what you have push through.

We finally get to board the plane, it’s about an hour late but at least it’s flying.an overnight flight, not one thing I’m looking forward to other than getting home.

There is a batch of young Irish guys in front of us, plus 2 older blokes I assume are fathers, the fathers look pissed and are pretty loud, we saw them at the bar sinking Heinikens and chatting up women, one of them gets up and down checking his backpack in the cabin luggage, it’s like he’s got ants in his pants. I resent that none of them wear masks and clearly have no intention of putting on. The Jetstar staff don’t do anything although they do make an announcement that masks are compulsory, that’s helpful, no it’s not, they ignore it.

I’m in the middle of the middle row, TMM on my left and a short young fella on my left, he’s figeting, writing a diary by hand ( unfashionable for a young person hand writing anything?). I can’t get into any tv or movies, Jetstar say they don’t have us down for food even though we paid for it – theaving pricks, we’re both a little annoyed but they want proof we paid for it otherwise we have to buy it, I refuse to pay for something twice so I go hungry. We can’t see anything on the MTA app that shows them we paid so we have to suck it up.

The flight lands on time, rhe pot put the pedal down I reckon, I got a bit of sleep thanks to my blow up pillow, but no thanks to the Irish bloke in front that has his screen up really bright and watches movies all f….g night. ** Note to self – take an eye mask next overnight flight.

We puck up our prepaid duty free grop then wait for a hour or so for our bags. The baggage carousel is surrounded by sleepy pissed off Jetstar customers waiting g for bags, it’s a mess. Finally they find the second trolley of bags off our plane and the carousel starts spinning again. Thankfully two orange Kathmandu 70 litre Hybrid bags are sited. Relief, TMM has a bag full of presents for a little girl in Cobar and it wouldn’t do to arrive home empty handed.

A McDonald’s brunch silences the growling belly, then the train to the Domestic terminal goes ok, then another annoying issue.

We have to check in to Qantas again, there are all the machines and one Qantas employee, but we can’t get our check in or get our Boarding Passes. Something is wrong, the woman in the red blouse saunters over the look on her face suggesting we’re imbeciles, but after showing her our Qantas FF cards, the itinerary she acknowledges we have to line up and see a human check in person as we can’t use the machines when we’ve flowing in via an international flight. What a f…up! The next thing is getting into the terminal through security, I say to the security bloke I’ve got titanium knees he says to just get in the normal line, the machine goes off, then the next bloke says you should have said you had replacement knees and gone to the full body scanner, I said I did tell him, oh well bad luck, so shoes, belt, watch have to come off, an offer of going to a private place – i say no thanks just f…g get in with it, I guessing you’ve picked up I’m tired and annoyed at Qantas or airport staff inefficiency and incompetence, I know they are short staffed but that’s not my problem, I’m the customer. I think that sentence is way too long but I’m not changing it.

Home at last, on time, and a good night’s sleep changes my attitude somewhat.

I’m going to sum the trip up next post, what I liked, what I didn’t like, and some tips. Then it’s starting a new series next week when we leave for Europe.

Ciao from Paulo