The van happened to drop us off in a location near our hostel. We were staying in the same one we had stayed in our first time in Bangkok, because we already knew where it was, which saved some time and frustration. The van drop-off point was actually quite random, and I think we were the only ones in our group who knew where we were.
We were only back in Thailand for a night so we could catch a flight back to Taiwan (there were no flights to anywhere useful out of Siem Reap). We had some intentions of revisiting some places we liked our first time around (I really wanted some more sour dough bread), but three straight weeks of running around and sightseeing was getting to us, and we ended up going straight to the airport the following morning.
The Bangkok airport was an adventure in itself.
We were running a bit late anyway due to traffic. We checked in and went through security, but the real insanity was in customs. What was supposed to be a 25 minute wait was probably going to be an hour or hour and a half, and we did not have that time. Customs only had four booths set up for foreigners and a HUGE line of people. There were the same amount for Thai citizens, but there were very few people in line. There was even a priority booth for handicapped, pregnant women and the elderly, but only a few people went through that line. After waiting for a very long time and realizing we were going to miss our flight, James jumped out of line to talk to someone about trying to go through one of the other lines. Some of the airlines that were currently boarding were sending people to retrieve passengers who were still waiting in line and get them through quickly. Our airline was not expensive enough for that, but we thought if it would work for them, then we might as well try. After a few minutes, James motioned for me to get out of line. I walked over to where he was standing with a woman who worked at the airport. He told me she had said we could go through the line for citizens. She added that we had to go through with actual citizens. It seemed weird, but I didn’t care, but after a few citizens had walked by and she hadn’t said anything, I asked again. She added a couple other details that would have been cool to know before I lost our place in line. That we had to go through with Thai citizens AND they should be our age and look like our friends AND they need to be on our flight. I resisted the urge to punch her and said that that was impossible and wasn’t there something else she could do? Couldn’t we go through the priority lane? We’re about to miss our flight- isn’t that priority?! She said it wasn’t possible and I got upset because her being an idiot had lost our place in line and possibly missed us our flight. She kept insisting if she helped us, she would have to help everybody, and I kept insisting that maybe she should help the people who were 10 minutes away from completely missing their flight. Finally, I think she realized that James and I weren’t going to leave her alone until she helped us, so with a noticeable attitude, she walked us to the front of the regular line (she couldn’t have done that 5 minutes ago, before I almost started to cry?!), and we were able to go through.
After we got through, we took off running, and it turns out that Bangkok is a large airport and our gate was not nearby. It also turned out that neither of us was in great shape, especially with 20-pound backpacks. We made it to the gate in time, and they hadn’t officially started boarding yet. We sat down for a breather and I nearly strangled James when he said, in typical James fashion, he was going to go for a walk to try to find a vending machine. Still frazzled from our experience in customs, I said, “If they start boarding while you’re gone, I’m getting on that plane and leaving you in Bangkok.” Realizing that was a bad idea, he stayed and 30 seconds later we boarded the plane and were off, once again, to Taipei.
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