Sunday morning we received an SMS to tell us that the flight from Melbourne to Singapore had been delayed 3 hours.
The knock on effect was that we would arrive late at night in Singapore and the connecting flight to Bangkok would not leave until the following morning.
Tiz called Jetstar to clarify what was going on as there was no mention of Jetstar organising or paying for the overnight stay.
After talking to their representative at length about the airlines responsibilities, which he pointed out differed from the occasions where they would cancel flights, we were told very clearly that overnight accomodation would be our responsibility and at our cost.
Tiz begrudgingly booked a room at one of the many airport hotels for AUD311.
We left at ~3pm Sunday AEST and arrived in Singapore ~7.5 hours later. As people disembarked we realised we were not the only ones that had been let down by Jetstar. There were three other Asian destinations that had had connecting flights "delayed" but now, for some inexplicable reason, Jetstar had decided to put all the affected passengers up for the night at the Grand Mecure.
The reissuing of boarding passes and baggage was chaotic and poorly explained. No-one was happy about what was happening and how it was being handled.
The down side for us was that there were hotel bookings made in Bangkok, as well the one we had made personally in Singapore, there were transfers and pickups that had to be rearranged and/or cancelled and the early connecting flight which meant we would get ~4 hours sleep.
To make long story short what could have been a 10-11 hour flight, including stopover, took 22 hours.
It's our fault as we swore we would not use Jetstar after the previous experience but ..... we did it again. No more though.
We arrived in Bangkok ~08:30am and proceeded to use Superrich Money exchange which had a rate 10% better than all the rest and bought two new SIMS from AIS (aka the green company), which were recommended by Som, Tiz's Thai teacher but also one of the cooks at Uncle in Collins St.
Go to Uncle for a feed and a drink and your view of Vietnamese food and service will never be the same again. Thanks Som!
We proceeded the predetermined pickup point for our drive to Cha Am and it all went very smoothly.
Our driver, Nom, drove like a man possessed, which from what I can tell is the norm in Thailand.
120kph all the time including 40 and 60 zones, unless stuck in a traffic jam, and no use of blinkers/indicators. I felt like saying "Mate, you're driving a Toyota Camry not a BMW M3!"
But he got us to Cha Am in one piece and quite quickly too AND he included a stop at a Amazon Coffee, a really good coffee franchise, halfway to Cha Am.
We bought ...... not coffee ...... Matcha and Rd Bean frappe for me and a Matcha Light (skim milk) for Tiz. Freezing cold and delicious.
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| Tiz |
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We got to the villa in Cha Am, unpacked, plugged everything in and went for a walk down the beach. It's in the 30's, sauna level humid and we're going out for drink to see some friends of friends off as they are returning to the Old Dart.
So far so good.
More on life in Cha Am tomorrow.
