On the coach I finally started to relax. You get to the point where you stop thinking about "have I packed this" and "have I packed that" and resign yourself to the fact that it's too late to worry about it. I know I had been thorough with my packing. Worries about whether my insulin was in the bag or whether I had all my blood testing equipment were niggles only, I knew I did. I had physically packed and repacked that bag about 10 bloody times, and maybe double that figure in my head. I had everything I wanted to take, end of story, or hopefully more like, just the start.
I closed my eyes a couple of times on the coach and would hazard a guess that over the course of the next 2 hours of bouncey, swaying travel I probably managed 30 or 40 minutes of 5 minute naps. It doesn't sound like much, but when your desperately tired, those few minutes can go towards making you feel a whole lot worse that you did originally. By the time I got off the coach at Heathrow I had that early morning, head hit by a cricket bat feeling but I knew had to run with it and get checked in and get hrough the baggage checks which have been a little bit of an effort on previous occasions. Probably because of the time of day that it was, this proved to be the quickest and easiest I have ever encountered. Within about 30 minutes I was sat in the Pret at the Terminal 4 departure lounge, eating breakfast and drinking a coffee. 20 minutes of that had been deciding at which cafe to roll with.
As a testament to me not just feeling battered, but looking it as well, the lady in the Pret decided to give me my coffee for free. It's perhaps a little thing, but it's those little things that can go about setting that day back on the right path. In hindsight maybe a coffee wasn't the smartest idea.
The plane left Heathrow after a short delay at 9:50am, luckily I was on it. The flight itself took just over 7 hours and it felt like double that. I had got to the point where all my muscles felt numb and my back and legs had a dullish ache. The leg room afforded was standard economy leg room, which meant that I spent the duration sat bold upright with no space available to slump a little, get comfortable and shut my eyes. I perused the in flight entertainment, which is best described as limited, played hangman on the screen until I guessed "Brisbane" for the 3rd time and watch the clock tick by. Bahrain could arrive quick enough. It felt like it arrived late.
There wasn't much to see in the airport during the stop over. It was just over 2 hours of twiddling thumbs for which I decided to use my own. I had a flat white in what I think was a Costa, which cost some money and with time still dragging it's heels, I opted to grab a McDonalds. It has been one of my small pleasures of recent times to try different McDonalds in different places over the world and it is usual for there to be slight variations in the menu. Hong Kong you could have hot sweetcorn in stead of fries, in Bangkok there is curry and rice dishes on the menu. In Bahrain airport they had the McArabia chicken which was chicken in a light pitta bread. Doesn't sound overly exciting and it wasn't really, but it's another one off the list. How many left to go?
Back on the plane I got ready for leg 2. I had nabbed myself one of the front seats with the hope of getting a little more leg room but as usual things didn't work as hoped. The front seats were fairly close to the dividing wall, which although giving the illusion of more space for the sitter, again meant that leg space was not at "stretch out and get comfy level". As it was warm and this was only going to be a 6 hour overnight flight I turned down the offer of a blanket and reasoned that i could just use my hoodie as a light cover if the need arose. About 2 hours into the flight I was chilly, after four hours I slipped into a state of hibernation for 5 or 10 minutes. This was another flight where the perception of time was misaligned with time itself. When I got off the plane at Bangkok Airport at 8:40 am on the Friday morning I had been travelling from Bristol for just under 23 hours but it felt double. Barring a couple of very short naps/blackouts I had been awake for around 39.
I was now borderline nonfunctional.
I managed to write something on my Thai immigration card which even by my standards looked barely legible, but even so I got my passport stamped without problem and got some Thai baht from the cashpoint, forgetting briefly to collect my bank card after the cash was dispensed. Usual frustrations at the baggage wheel with people just standing so close to it that no one can see their bags coming, and even if they do they need to call a scrum in order to grab it before it whizzes by and escapes into the wild. None of this was a problem. I think I had just got to the point where I wasn't able to get annoyed about anything. I collected my bag, clipped on the carry strap, escaped through customs and headed down to the subway for a Subway. I needed more coffee than could ever be available.
The trip by train to my first port of call was as straightforward as it could be. I had purposely booked a place that was close to one of the stations off the MRT transport system in Bangkok and this itself interlinks conveniently with the Airport train with just a short walk above the roads in between. The temperature was steadily rising and when I arrived at this juncture just after 10am it was already up at 31 degrees c, and I was still in tshirts and jeans. Remarkably, it seems that I was also now just too tired to sweat as well.
Tiredness.
Cures all ailments (ish).
I arrived at the hotel early and requested whether there was somewhere that I could put my bags and come back later, rather than lumping them around longer. As my room was already prepared they allowed me an early check in and it was a relief to get into some an airconditioned room just briefly before ducking off and taking a much needed shower. As much as I could have slept right there and then I decided to battle through it. If I slept now then my body clock would be out so I needed to get through to the night at least. I got myself changed and headed out for the afternoon for more coffee and a much needed haircut.
When I crashed at about 8pm in the evening, i was out for around 12 hours, and when I woke up I felt as bad as I had done the night before. It looked like it was going to take more than one decent sleep to get over the previous 3 days endeavour. It was good to have finally got here, but it's impossible not to think and already start to dread the flight back to the UK in just over a months time.
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