The Turkish Airlines representative we emailed was aggressively unhelpful, but not a good example of the airline as a whole. When we arrived at the airport in TLV, the check-in clerk managed to get our bags sent to Chiang Mai along with us, instead of having to pick them up and go through security again in Bangkok, which was a good thing. She read out parts of our names to someone in NATO phonetic alphabet, hence the title of this post. At the same time, Leia made sure that her Gluten Free meal was booked for the long haul flight (Istanbul-Bangkok) and all seemed to be going smoothly.
We went to the Dan lounge to relax a bit before our first flight and have some complementary tea, not beforing buying some candy at the duty free for the flight. The free sample people only gave us one sample of vodka or blended Scotch per person, so Guy didn't get so drunk yet without beer from the lounge.
The Turkish airline flights were really great. They gave out delicious pistachio Rahat lukum on the beginning of the flight, and the planes all seem pretty new with personal screens. We changed flights in Istanbul without trouble, despite a narrow window to rush to our next gate. The long haul flight went all right if with a little less legroom, and the food was fantastic for airline food. Leia got her Gluten free meal and slept on Guy's lap, and we both got to watch movies. Guy watched what must be among the stupidest action movies ever made.
When we got to the giant Bangkok airport and needed to check into our flight to Chiang Mai - the lady at the transfers counter told us that it was cancelled and only the later flight was available. She checked us in to that, pointed us in the direction of the Bangkok airways lounge, and gave us a 300Bt. food voucher. As far as we were concerned, the delay just gave us a more relaxed transfer and free dinner.
We went to the lounge, which proved to have great Thai finger foods- including bananas, sweet rice pudding balls, Thai bourekas and sweet muffins. We stuffed our bellies full of that. Only afterwards we went to see what our food vouchers would get us- and it turns out it could get us a lot! We got a meal, a dessert and a drink each. When we finally got on our flight- we got to eat another meal. At this point we couldn't possibly eat anything more, but we still tried!
At Chiang Mai airport we received my (Leia's) big backpack, but we got the news that the big black (awesome four wheeled) suitcase decided to stay in BKK another night. We then got the airline representative to escort us to buy a local sim card on the other side of the airport.
We then went to get a taxi outside and had a long conversation over running the meter (which came to about the same price as they quoted in the end.) The driver took us to our hotel (Jira Luxury boutique residence). At this point Guy was pissed off at the idea of having to wear the same tshirt for another day (the suitcase contained mainly his clothes) but too tired to go out and buy any yet. We found out how to log in to the hotel wifi, wrote some emails, showered and went to sleep.
1 comment:
Wow! great to hear from you. I guess by now you have already got some foot massages, maybe even seen an elephant...???
The food is great, isn't it?
Kisses,
Imma
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