Thank you for your replies
… The hotel in KUL was called The Zon on the park. I have to say again, that the staff were very understanding about the whole thing, but were pretty powerless to help.
So, I made the decision to fly to BKK and go back to AUH from there. Had I been alone, or with a seasoned traveller, I most likely would have continued my journey, however as the better half is not well travelled, I thought it better. To this day I am not convinced about my decision.
Anyway, decision made, I called Air Asia, who informed that seats were available on the evening flight to BKK and for a last minute booking, the fares we very very reasonable! That booked the hotel very kindly changed the pick up time, and an hour or so later than planned we were off to the airport.
The flight from HKT-BKK was packed solid with not a seat to spare, as this was the last flight of the evening. There were obviously a lot of people going into Bangkok for the weekend, and some were even dressed for their night out already. I have to say that seeing a group of ladies dressed for a nightclub trooping on board is very amusing indeed. We had moderate turbulence, but mostly smooth, and landed in Bangkok around 11pm.Yep, these girls must have taken a while to get ready!
The flight to AUH was at 8.30 the next morning, and we were on standby. We decided against a hotel room, sorry I should rephrase that, I decided against a hotel room, we ate, and then tried to sleep on the seats for a few hours. Approx 3 hours later, better half had managed around 1 hour, and I hadn’t. Boy how I regretted my decision not to stay over somewhere, and boy did the better half not let me forget it.
So at 5.30am we trundled to the EY check in desk looking rough as a badgers preverbial backside. The guy behind the counter took one look at our booking, and gave me ‘the face’ … The one that says ‘love, you have no chance’ … Not to be dissuaded, I asked what time we should come back. 7.30 he said … So off we went to wait one again. Better half’s brother and his other half showed up, They had been on a 14 day trip around Thailand separately. So now there were 4 of us waiting. One with a confirmed ticket, and 3 on standby. (can you see my chances dwindling? Because I could!)
7.30 we go back to the desk. 13 people waiting on standby including us. Brilliant. Better half’s brother gets on with his confirmed ticket, and we wait. And wait. And wait. Its getting very late, and I know myself that we are not getting on this flight. Better halfs face is getting darker and darker by the minute, by this time he is tired and hungry and just wants to get home. Me, well I am finding this all quite amusing, much to my two travel companions chargrin.
So after a loooong ... wait, the guy finally tells me what I already know. There is a flight in the evening, try that one, but to be honest it looks worse than this one. Great!. So we all troop to the internet café, and book a hotel for the Day/Night. We went cheap, as we may have only needed it for a few hours we just didn’t know. My run on bad hotels continued.
Faulty Towers had nothing on this place, it even had the Spanish looking waiter (who was actually Thai) … I could see that being an airport hotel, it was never gonna be much cop, and for the price we paid, well I don’t know about value for money, but this place did what it said on the tin as it were. We only had one bed, and no sofa weirdly, (I thought all hotel rooms had a sofa) so it was all very cozy for our afternoon nap!
So the evening comes, and we are all just ready to go home by now. Off we go to the airport once more. Check in, and after around an hour, the guy goes, only one of you can go, the other two must stay. Decision!!!! … so we make a decision that better half will go, and the two ladies will stay. Please don’t judge him, he knows how independent I am, and how capable I am when it comes to travel. He on the other hand isn’t so yet, however I am slowly knocking that into him. Bombshell. It has to be other lady who goes, as she has a higher standby priority. I thought better half may have a small weep at this point, but no, he stoically accepted this, and off we went back to Faulty Towers for another evening of joy.
We slept for a few hours, and after a horrid shower with a spider and a ghekko looking on, we trundled our way back to BKK airport for our 3rd try. Better halfs mood had considerably lightened, and he even cracked a joke or two, I knew then that I had cracked the standby thing with him, and we were all good from here on in.
We got to the check in desk (nice and early, you never know), and the guy takes our passports, looks at his screen and goes “are you seriously on your third try?! I have never seen this before, usually everyone gets out of here on standby flight number two. Lets hope we don’t make it four eh?” Was I ready to commit a crime? Just about, however better half was laughing hysterically at this, and found it oh so amusing, that I couldn’t help but laugh along.
Then, like the angel that he was (and it probably wasn’t this dramatic, but hey!) in slow motion, he produced two golden tickets from behind his check in desk, and with a smile asked if seats 3 E/F were ok for us wooooooooooooo hoooooooooooooo !!!!!! what do you think mate! I don’t think the immigration staff in BKK will ever see two happier souls in all of their days.
We boarded EY407 and I promptly fell into the deepest sleep for pretty much the whole flight, I needed that sleep. Its ok thinking about yourself when something like this happens, but when you have others to think about too, it becomes pretty tiring. Better half ate, drank and was merry, and thoroughly enjoyed his flight back. When I woke up, he just beamed at me, and told me what an amazing holiday he had had, how very sorry he was for being so grumpy towards the end, and how impressed he was at what I had managed to achieve at such short notice.
So in conclusion, was it a hasty decision? I suppose I will never know, but I know one thing, I wouldn’t have changed a single thing, or a single minute of it. Because that’s the diversity of travel, and that’s why I love it so much.
I hope you enjoyed.