Early wake up to leave at 7 a.m. for a long dusty drive from Siem Reap to Bangkok, dusty at least till the Cambodian-Thai border. However, as said before, the road is improving, so everything went quite well as well as the customs formalities. Incredible how bad the roads are in the border place Poi Pet itself; just over the border, having arrived in Thailand, everything was so clean, the roads so smooth, what a difference!
Arrival around 4 p.m. at Bangkok and passing by the airport nobody would imagine that there are serious problems going on ...
In the meantime I tried to get in contact with Air France and Go Voyages (the agency with which I booked my ticket), but no positive result. I phoned with the Dutch and the French embassy in Bangkok to find out what to do. They all recommended to stay in Bangkok and try to get in contact with Air France.
The French embassy informed me that the opening for civil flights of the military airport U Tapao at approx. 190 km from Bangkok is examined in order to reroute all the flights initially scheduled via Bangkok. That would be good news, but so far nothing is definitive.
Via Air France in Bangkok, I got an answer machine informing that my initial flight would arrive 26 hours later as scheduled. Not understanding such, I finally contacted KLM at Amsterdam, who managed to identify my ticket - reassuring ! - and ... confirmed that this mysterious flight has been cancelled.
KLM proposed me to put on a flight for next week, i.e. Saturday 06-12-08; exactly 1 week later than my initial return date.
Well, I took this option, because I can not decide upon what to do else: going to a nearby airport in Thailand (or even Kuala Lumpur) and buy there myself an entire new ticket (for my own expenses; no idea if this will be covered by my insurance since this is a political event; I did not yet contact my insurance to find out). You can imagine that a lot of people are blocked right now and that the information diffused by air lines and embassies are conservatory and sometimes contradictory. Information from other passengers say this, tour operator say that: what to do? The information about the situation at the airport is minor, after all this is Thailand where 30 coups d'état have been done since the last 50 years; so nothing comprehensive is told in the press!
The army is at the same side as the demonstrators, but rumours say that maybe the police may remove the demonstrators.
I certainly do not want to hang around at Bangkok airport - or any other one - for days and days to be put on a waiting list etc.
Unfortunately I did not succeed to talk to somebody from Air France at Bangkok, the office closed at 5 p.m. and they are not open in the weekend and there is nobody from Air France at the Bangkok airport right now. I will go to see them on Monday morning to see if I can make another arrangement, which allows me to return to France a couple of days earlier.
Air France from Paris phoned me last night around 3 a.m., being asleep I did not answer this call. The woman left a message saying that she had to propose me a solution - without telling which one, how stupid of her - but she saw in my file that I organised already another flight. She did not leave her phone no. and I still do not have a phone no. of Air France in Paris, which I can access from a foreign country, very inconvenient!!
Good unbelievable news however for Arjan and the rest of the group: their flight will be honoured !!!!!! it will leave however from Chiang Mai, a place in northern Thailand, where they will go tomorrow Saturday 29-11 by bus with another group of tourists from the Netherlands (Shoestring). Their airline, Chinese Airlines (the Taiwan part) has connections with Chiang Mai, so their flight has been simply rerouted and will leave at the initial time of 2.30 a.m. 30-11 which should bring them back to the Netherlands at the initial time.
It sounds too good to be true: tens of thousands of travellers are blocked and they will leave like nothing happened??? Let's cross fingers that indeed nothing will intervene this wonderful news.
In the meantime I cross fingers as well, that the Bangkok airport will be released as said on the television on Saturday 29-11 6 p.m. local time and that things will get back to normal.
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