And home

Finally home!

Getting home was quite the adventure. First we took an uneventful ride in a pickup truck from our beach place to Thong Sala port, on the other side of the island. We had done our research and decided that we could leave on the 10am ferry to catch our 3:15 flight (ferry was supposed to take 2 hours and the bus on the other end another hour) but the agent at the port told us we would not make it to our flight. She said that for some mysterious reason, the ferry would take 3.5 hours today, and that the drive on the other side would take 1.5 hours. So there was quite a scramble - we called our travel agent to see what our alternatives were. She thought that the bus might take that long, but that we should get a private car that would be faster, so we decided to go for it. The ferry did take about 3.5 hours, so we had quite a bit of time to plan our actions once we landed. We got to the cab area very quickly and they assured us that it would only take 45 minutes, then we had to wait another 5 for the pickup truck to pull up. Alex rode in front, the rest of us in the backseat, and the luggage (including all three laptops, etc) was in the open back (blue skies, though.) Of course, the driver just didn't seem to understand our panic (our alternative flight would cost us an additional $400+) and stopped for luxuries like gasoline (what was he thinking?) and at one point, after finally passing a group of extremely slow traffic, pulled over, perhaps to roll up the window by Alex because it had started to really rain. We were shouting 'go, go, go! airport!' until he finally got back on the road, behind the same line of cars. The trip, by car, ended up taking about 1.5 hours, and we arrived at the airport at 3:10. Miraculously, we not only made it onto the flight, but there were many others who ended up boarding after us, including a guy who took that bus that we were planning to take originally. Closest thing to a missed flight I've ever been part of. We arrived without incident in Bangkok and settled into our bland hotel near the airport. Angela met with some medical people to talk about some stuff over dinner, Laura went to do some shopping, and I hung out with Alex.

Next day's airplane ride home was a not so bad, or terrible if you are Angela. First, we woke up at 6am, were downstairs around 6:40 for breakfast, but somehow we ended up with no time to eat or feed Alex before we were shoed onto the airport 7am shuttle in a big rush. Our first leg, from Bangkok to Tokyo, was fine. But on the longest flight, we had to sit on different sides of the airplane, and there was no room for the carseat, either. Angela ended up sitting with him for something like 8 or 9 hours straight. That was the Tokyo to Dallas leg of the trip. Then we arrived in Dallas where we had to go through customs and all that stuff, and we had to recheck our bags, which simply means that we pick up our checked luggage, take it to a belt nearby, and some people working there load it back onto a belt to our next flight. But there were a lot of people, and things got a bit hectic. We dropped off the bags, went upstairs, and realized that we had left one of our carry-on bags on the cart, and the carry-on contained my computer. So I rushed back downstairs, but the bag was already gone. A helpful counter guy (not many of those on American Airlines these days) told me that the TSA would sort the luggage so that any unmarked ones would end up back there, so he called down there for me. But they hadn't gotten it yet, so he told me to come back. Long story short, they didn't find the bag until I was so late that I had to leave to my gate or miss my flight. They called our ticket counter to tell us that they found it and that it would make it on our flight, much to our relief. The Dallas to Dulles flight was good (in Dallas, even though Angela had already asked about empty seats that we might put Alex's car seat into, and had been told that the flight was absolutely completely filled, I decided to ask again, and suddenly there were several available to us. Strange.) In the Dulles airport, though, two pieces of luggage never showed up - the one with my computer, and another checked bag (which, btw, had my backup hard drive in it.) While we pressed the lost luggage people for help, the second bag turned out to have been shipped to the wrong city and we were told we'd get it in the next day (still waiting - driver has since said he's on his way) but no info on the other. So we went to our respective homes. But the suitcase with my laptop also had our apartment keys. Security came up to help us, but couldn't get the door open. Finally, Angela and the security guy went back downstairs, and I got a call saying that my computer had arrived in the airport at 1:15am, then I pushed a little harder on our door and it opened. Other than that, there was only one other snag - a leak in our ceiling while we were gone did quite a bit of damage to an area of our apt, though nothing important of ours was ruined. Finally, we all went to bed - at 3 or 4 am. The flights totaled something like 21 hours, not including layovers or the 1 hour flight from Suri Thani to Bangkok, or the ferry or cars. Yikes.