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JOURNEY TO HEATHROW

Inglish udonthanicityweblog.nl

I have said my goodbyes in person or by video calls to all my nearest and dearest over the last few weeks / days . There have been a few tears along the way ,but at last , after months of stress and years of planning I am on my way to Heathrow Airport T2 to join my wife in our wonderful home in Udonthani ,Thailand. 

It’s 1.45 pm on Sunday 28th September 2020 , and we are on the A1 travelling southbound from Pontefract West Yorkshire . I say we because in the car are my son Paul, doing the driving my daughter Jayne (doing the talking) and one of my lovely grandaughters Amy (doing what teenagers do best and using her phone or sleeping).

There was no way they were going to let me get a taxi so i didn’t put up to much of an argument. It’s about a four hour drive , my flight is 21.35 so we have plenty of time even allowing for stops for eating and “comfort breaks”. Due to the Covid 19 pandemic i don’t know how long it will take me to check in etc as there are many documents that need to be checked and although Kasorn did this journey about 6 weeks ago, hers was a repatriation flight for Thai nationals and although she needed very similar documentation, mine are a bit more involved and i am expecting vigorous checks. 

I am feeling a mixture of feelings, of relief, that i am at last on my way, anxiety, over documents and the flight , sadness at leaving loved ones, friends and family,  and excitement about starting my new life in a far off land and beginning my retirement , the butterflys are already building up and i know they will be getting worse the closer we get to Heathrow, i have done this journey many times so know where we are all along the way. 

After a good and uneventful journey , with a stop or two along the way, we arrive at T2 at about 4.45pm, only passengers allowed into the building so goodbyes have to be said at the drop off point, which, i am not sorry about because i am close to tears and so is my daughter although she is holding it well.

So it’s cases on a trolley , a few quick photos,quick hugs and handshakes  and off to join the queue just to enter the Terminal with a lump in my throat and a tear in my eyes. 

TERMINAL 2

I have entered T2 after only a short wait outside but inside is bedlam, people everywhere, no social distancing, some people wearing masks , some not . I have a serious bout of nerves growing bigger all the time. I have worked hard to dot the i’s and cross the T’s with my documentation and have my Certificate of Entry from the Thai embassy , which is only issued once you have sent them copies of your documents so really things should go smoothly .

I have a nagging feeling about my Travel Insurance as i couldn’t seem to find one covering a year so opted for a multiple entry insurance that i knew would cover me for 2 months which gets me out of quarantine and to my home where i can purchase a Thai insurance policy….BUT IT HAS BEEN CHECKED BY THAI EMBASSY >>>RIGHT . Just to make sure i had everything i took 2 Covid tests , a Government one and a private one , confident i wont get a problem with that ….

 

 

I look at the queue snaking its way to check-in and think ok thats not to bad , only to be direct to another “snake” 20 meters away with no chairs but there is hand gel although i think some people are blind as hardly anyone uses it, i do even though i have 2 x 50ml bottles in my pocket, the lack of social distancing alarms me and i try to keep a safe distance from the person in front and keep my trolley behind me to ensure distance between me and the person behind. After about 25 mins i reach check in , the butterflies are now doing a route march in my stomach and having a party with the anxiety ,and nerves are joining in too. I arrive at the counter and hand over my passport and documentation to the official and wait …and wait and then BOOM ,sorry sir your Covid test is not in date .

Now , the result of the test has to be sent not more than 72 hours before the day you fly , so i had done a test run a week earlier with a government test and worked out that if i did the test on a Wed the result would come back on a Friday well within the time limit but to be sure i would do a private one too,the week before when i did the Government test the result didn’t come back until the Sunday evening so i did the government one on the Tuesday this time,  all went according to plan,or so i thought , did the Private test on the Wed ,paid for courier service to arrive Thursday got email result Friday morning …excellent …only i didn’t look at the date on the letter sent by  email …

who would ..after all it was Friday lunchtime before it arrived in my inbox ….however …the keen eyed official spotted that it had been written on the Thursday . Panic has now set in and the official has called a second person over and i am explaining my actions and tell him i didn’t get the email until Friday lunch so i am well inside their very tight time frame , what about the Government one i hear you ask?

Sods law intervened there and did the test on the Tuesday result back on Thursday , absolutely no good whatsoever. The official then asks if i have a copy of the email on my phone, luckily i do and he can see when it was sent to me , but no that’s above his pay grade so off he goes with documents and my phone to see a supervisor. By this time my brain is going into turbo and planning how to get to a hotel for the night , can’t call the family back , they are too far on their return journey , have to get a train tomorrow , refund on my flight , start the whole process again,,,no…i cant go through all this again “stand to one side please sir “ a voice jolts me from my thoughts.

Negativity and despair are starting to come into play now as I stand and wait for someone to decide my fate. The official checks in 3 more people while I wait , I see the second official approaching with my documents and phone in hand. He speaks with the check-in official and I get called forward , “window or aisle seat sir” RELIEF …

So with great relief I moved to security , when suddenly  it dawned on me that I might get the same problem in Bangkok and having read earlier in the week that some people are being refused entry and returned to their country of departure, the anxiety comes back with vengeance. Social distancing is a bit better at security but very very slow so the queue is huge and there are people being brought forward as their flights are due to leave very soon.

I eventually get to within sight of the security gate and can see the problem straight away, there are ten “starting gate” style automatic boarding pass/passport readers and the woman is calling blocks of 10 people at a time,

military style and problem is ..only 5 starting gates appear to be working correctly so the other 5 people are having to have theirs checked manually , which is turning out quicker, she wont call the next person forward until all ten have been through . So I get in my set of 10 and she calls us all forward military style. I look at her and tell her it’s pointless as I know my booth won’t work , it didn’t for the last 4 people so why would it for me?

She tells me in no uncertain terms to move forward . I do as requested and stand there repeatedly trying to scan my passport , the woman looks at me as if i am doing it on purpose when a man very politely tells me to move to him so he can check it manually, at last someone at heathrow who uses initiative , so now through to another “snake” to get through to x-ray machines , this , thankfully goes smoothly as i have no toiletries to declare as it is a direct flight and i have already separated my laptop from my “carry-on” bag.

 

Its now 7.30 ish and I am looking for a boarding gate but that won’t be shown until 8.15 pm so off for a coffee it is then. Departure side is very quiet and thankfully social distancing isn’t a problem. I get a coffee and sit down somewhere quiet to gather my thoughts and try to chill before the madness of boarding , i call the family to let them know i am through to departures and ok , they are only 40 minutes from home by now so i say goodbye and tell them i will message when i arrive in my hotel. 

 

The boarding gate , as I expected is a mile walk away underneath the runway on the opposite side of the Terminal . I do the trek and find i am one of the first to arrive which is great, have my temperature taken and docs checked again and all is well , i am the 5th person to board the plane and gone are the lovely uniforms adorned by the aircrew and replaced by what looks like and probably are ,biohazard suits with face masks and shields, i am allocated my aisle seat and settle in for the 12 hour flight. No getting up and walking around , face masks must be worn at all times except when eating or drinking, no alcohol being served and basic meals , this didn’t worry me at all, my bum was on that seat and I was on my way.

Next stop Bangkok. I watch some movies, and although tired , can’t sleep , I still have the nagging thought in my head about the Covid test when I arrive. Middle seat is empty so I can stretch out a bit. 

 

BANGKOK

I arrived at Bangkok Suvarnabhumi at 3pm local time, a little ahead of schedule after 11.5 hours. A few bumps along the way, but a  relatively good flight. We leave the aircraft in an orderly fashion with the cabin crew allowing only 3 rows at a time and surprisingly enough, passengers stay seated until called forward. As i step off the plane there’s a line of security staff ushering me along the way, no stopping for the toilet or freshen -up. We eventually arrive in a concourse that I recognise as just a walkway in normal times.

There are a couple of  hundred chairs in neat rows and we are being separated into 2 groups, state quarantine ( for Thai Nationals)and Alternate State Quarantine (ASQ) for non Thai Nationals of which there were 50 on the flight , we are given a badge printed ASQ and moved to the appropriate seating area, here i have my temperature taken and fill in a questionnaire, all questions that i have answered before and can be found on my documents, i am called forward to see a health worker and asked more questions like , have i got a cough , sore throat etc (like

 

It is now 8 weeks since i arrived in Udonthani and i am adapting to a completely new way of life and culture. As you will have seen if you have been following my posts on FB , we have achieved a lot in that short time and now its time to relax and when i am sitting on my terrace as the sun is going down silhouetting the coconut palms and banana trees, listening to the noise of the crickets and other night time critters in 20+ degrees , i realise it was all worth while .LUCKY ? NO, we worked bloody hard for this ….

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