I did make it. I am here. Took a bit of doing though....

I expected the train to the airport to be delayed. But it was the manner of the delay that got me seething. There were no problems at all, chugging along merrily, actually on time! Up until we got 50 yards from Manchester Piccadilly, were it stood for around 20 minutes! So not quite at the airport and a little narked.

The Manchester -> Heathrow flight I didn't expect to have problems with. But I did. Firstly, the flight was delayed by 30 minutes, it gave me an hour to make my connection. Then the delay was 50 minutes, so I had a chat with the Customer Service people and they said that they'd have someone in the terminal meet me to help with my connection, fair enough. All is going well on the flight until the pilot informs us that he has been ordered into a holding pattern for 20 minutes. Straight away a dozen assistance lights go on up and down the plane (mine being one of them).

I walked off the plane, knowing my flight would be taking off about now, and there's a bloke with a placard with my name on, he gives me a new boarding card for a Qantas flight (I was supposed to be on BA), and tells me to get into a minivan by the plane. I was then dumped at Terminal 4 and told to get to gate 4 in 5 minutes.

The flight to Bangkok was uneventful, nice dinner, watched the latest Harry Potter movie (wasn't impressed), had a kip, woken by breakfast, and about an hour later we landed.

In Bangkok airport everyone wastrying to get you into a taxi! feeling rather waryof it all I took the bus (100baht - 1quid40) it took ages. I headed straight to an hotel I'd seen on the net. Dumped my gear and got myself together for a few beers and a meal later on.

I'll tell you what I think of the Khao San area later.