Oh God….I am an Idiot!!

I got up on Monday morning and ran around the house like a loony getting everything ready for the imminent arrival of (Can’t help it….feel a drum roll coming on) da, da, daaaa the INLAWS!! Then I grabbed a taxi about 11am, they were due to land at 12.05pm and I didn’t want to be late, and headed over to the delightful Suvarnabhumi Airport whilst explaining to the taxi driver that I wasn’t a tourist and that I expected him to put on his meter (Honestly….the taxi drivers over here drive me mad…..they have this horrible habit of trying to rip you off – I wouldn’t mind this so much if it was by a little amount but when it’s four times what the journey should actually cost I have a bit of an issue!!).

So I arrived at the airport, found out which gate the flight got in at and made my way over to gate C. It was then that I discovered that the gate has two exits (Isn’t that sensible!!) and there was only one tiny little sign stating that tour passengers were to go to one side and the other passengers were to go to the other – it also didn’t help that, because there were places you could buy food, lots of people had congregated in front of the sign so not only could passengers not see the sign as they were coming out the gate – you couldn’t see the gate from where you were allowed to wait so had no clue if the people you were waiting for had gone to the other side. There were other inconveniences I discovered - for example (Yes, I’m going to rant) the exit is rather narrow and on both sides you have people trying to get tourists to take one of their taxies (at 4 times the usual price of course!!), drivers who have come to collect passengers and take them to their hotels and people waiting to meet their loved ones (Actually that was quite funny…..I saw a number of young women holding photographs which they desperately peered at every time a man emerged through the gate. Ahhh….the joys of e-mail romances - I wonder how many of the men sent a photo that wasn’t about 10 years old and that actually looked like them?.....I think I may be getting a bit cynical in my old age) Anyway, you have to peer round all these people in order to get a view of the gate. Finally, after someone had gone off with a driver to their hotel, I got a space next to the barrier and discovered that there is a bloody big plant across from the designated waiting area that blocked the view to the gate (Brilliant piece of plant placement!!) so I had to stand on tiptoe to actually see the gate…sigh!! Then, and this really annoyed me, a taxi tout shoved me out the way and said ‘I work here’. I had as much right to be there as he did – growl!! So after a couple of hours on tiptoe bobbing around trying to see round the plant, people, name cards etc I started to get a bit worried…..surely it doesn’t take that long to get through immigration…..god I hope there is not a problem (and before you ask ‘Why didn’t you just contact them?’…..I had tried sending a text to let them know that I was there and to head for the exit with the plant but my phone decided it would only send to Thai numbers – don’t you just love technology!) I ended up texting Chris and asking him to contact Sadie – he then phoned me and said

‘They are still in Glasgow. They leave at 3pm today and arrive in Bangkok at 12pm tomorrow.’

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!