Day One – Travel and Bangkok

The Robbins family holidays have a habit of incidents that stick in the mind for ages. For example the exhaust falling off the car on the way into Euro Disney,my car breaking down in Philadelphia,problems with immigration at Tijuana and Minneapolis and of course recently the fire in the Euro tunnel leading to many and varied rail journeys in France. It was therefore with some trepidation that we approached this holiday wondering what ,if anything would make it’s mark this time.The civil unrest in Bangkok came and went,then the snow came and caused chaos in the South East but by the time we came to travel it had virtually all gone.The journey commenced from Margam exactly as planned and off we went.About a mile after Membury services my tyre warning light came on indicating that I had a puncture.Now the benefit of having run-flat tyres is that as the name suggests you can keep on running on them(there are drawbacks not least of which is the cost). Eventually we found a Kwik Fit garage and two new tyres later we were on our way again minus £400 again!!! – (any one expecting presents please note).

Despite the delay we arrived at Heathrow in good time and had plenty of time to savour the Club Lounge.My sister-in-law Lorna tells me that she will never travel anything but business in the future and I must say I agree with her.The service both in the lounge and when we boarded the plane were first class(actually they were business class but you know what I mean).The seats were the best I had ever travelled on and the food was a treat with choices of starter and mains and plenty of beer,wines and spirits if required.The cabin crew even addressed us personally.Two gripes though with BA, firstly when the flight was called there was no organisation and no priory boarding for business and secondly the configuration of the plane put Premium Economy in front of the business cabin – so I did not have the chance to “turn left”.That said the flight was good and despite having over an hour delay we arrived in Bangkok about 45 minutes later than schedule.

First impression of Bangkok are a very busy city – the hotel looks good but more of that next time.We ate in the restaurant by the river as shown in this picture.

More pictures of food tomorrow Patrick , but to start with this is the fruit in the room after Sylvia had eaten a banana. More tomorrow.