THURSDAY, JANUARY 28, 2016
The wonderful world of airports
Today is the day. For three weeks, I’ve been looking forward to this day. The excitement didn’t hit me till now, but I’m feeling it now. I’M GOING TO THAILAND!!! Yay!!!!! I’m completely scared for this trip because of the things we have planned but I figured it would do me some good to step out of my comfort zone.
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| Tracy and I at Taoyuan Airport waiting for our flight to board. |
4:30 PM – Macau International Airport
So we have a 1 hour 40 minute layer in Macau. We just passed through security and we are now on our way to get our ticket for the next portion of our trip to Bangkok. Why we didn’t get boarding passes for both flights? I don’t know. But they told us to get the connecting flight boarding pass in Macau.
This is the part where all hell breaks loose. We get to the transfer counter for Air Macau and we’re stunned by the scene before us. There is a small mob of people in front of the counter. There is no line and there are maybe three agents behind the counter. There’s one guy who looks to be the manager maybe and everyone is trying to tell them their problems and have him fix it.
Well, we need to get our boarding passes. Our plane leaves in less than two hours. I’m not sure what the best way to get to the front. There was no line and people were shoving their way to the front. I don’t know how anything got done because I observed the agents trying to help one costumer, only to be interrupted by another angry costumer or co worker with a question.
So, this isn’t looking great. I manage to squeeze to the front, but then the agent tells me I need to wait for the other agent because they have to use a certain computer. So, she starts helping other people while I wait. Tracy was able to get someone’s attention and get them to help us. They go to the same lady I talked to and the agent checks on her computer to see if it works.
Her response: I called the manager. Tracy: Yes, call the manager. Do you have our boarding passes?
Agent: sorry, you have to wait for the manager.
20 min later….
Manager: sorry, there are no more seats on the flight.
Tracy: NO! I paid for a seat, so I get a seat.
Manager: we are overbooked.
At this point, Tracy lets the manager have it. She points out that AirMacau screwed up. They made us wait an hour and the plane leaves in 10 min.
I admire Tracy for advocating for herself. She was very patient and has every right to be angry by this point. We booked this flight so we would arrive in foreign country at a decent time and not put ourselves in danger. This was after the manager informs us that the next flight to Bangkok is 10:55pm. The airline said we would get 200 MOP. We asked, “What is MOP?” in which he replied, “Macau dollar.”
My internal reaction: are you kidding me?! What would I want with your country’s money. I’m not even staying in Macau! So, I have to change it to USD? Fine. Wait, what?
200 MOP equals less than $25 USD.
Manager: 200 MOP is enough for a taxi ride from airport to downtown Bangkok.
Tracy: Are you going to arrange for someone to rape me on the streets too?
(If we took the next available flight, we would have arrived at the airport past 12am.)
They also arranged for us to have dinner at the airport.
Some time later….
The flight is delayed and they have seats. What?!
Apparently, they were saving the seats for people on a connecting flight that hasn’t even arrived yet. The flight in question is delayed and the passengers won’t be able to make it to the flight. Suddenly there are available seats for us.
Anyways, we got to Bangkok close to 10pm.
AND…. we got first class seats!(without the first class service) Exciting.
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| I usually don’t enjoy airplane food, but the food was surprisingly good! It was my favorite! EGGPLANT! |
Welcome to Thailand!
So we arrive in Thailand and everything goes smoothly for the most part.
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| Tracy and I at BKK airport. |
As we head towards a taxi stand, a tour company stops us and offers a ride to our hostel in a private car. She also sells us a tour for the next day. We sign up for it. It was late, and we didn’t have anything planned, so scheduling a tour and knowing that we have something to do the next day, sounds good.
Everything went fine. Nothing bad happened. At some point, we did think to ourselves: “we are in a car alone. We don’t know the route, so we wouldn’t know if he drove off to a remote place to rape us. No one knows where we are right now.”
There’s a sense of vulnerability traveling as a female.
Home Hug Hostel, Bangkok
From BKK airport, it’s about a 30 min drive. We get to our hostel close to midnight and are shown to our beds. It was probably 30 degrees Celsius in the room. When I asked her to turn the air conditioning on, she turned it to 27 or 28 degrees Celsius, which is cold for some people, but definitely not cold enough for me. Surprisingly, I slept pretty well despite the heat.
Facilities were clean, but only one bathroom. There’s a hair dryer you can ask for from the front desk. The lockers are secure, just not big enough to fit a carry on in it. Breakfast was included which is nice because I got to sleep in and didn’t need to wake up early to find something to eat. I should note that “breakfast” is used in this context to strictly mean jam and toast.
oh Macau…a one and done type of place….never again haha