We picked up our hire car in Ipswich having asked for an MG HS as we could just squeeze Tilly in the back and found they’d taken no chances and upgraded us to a Grandaddy Volvo, very nice it was too, it even had a Werther’s Original holder, or maybe that was a coin pocket …so we cruised down to Gatwick at 35mph, and headed to check in for our flight.
No more than 48 hours before your flight you have to notify Norse if your bike box is bigger than 250cm total dimensions. We’d taken the back wheel off for this trip and had managed to slim Tilly down to 265 (L+W+H), so dropped them a line the night before. You can’t phone anyone there, they even state on their web site they have no phone line, but we woke up to an email confirming our box would be no issue but our flights had been cancelled and fully refunded. What!
That wasn’t the start to the day we wanted so we double checked with our names and flight number and they confirmed the refund. Then we asked them to double double check the booking ref, and they said, “Oh that ones fine”
Phew.
We dropped the car off at the return at Gatwick and the whole drop off through check-in and security went well and was well run. We then had to wait for an hour delay on the Norwegian flight to Oslo!… I know, it’s cold there and mountainous, but fret yee not, we aren’t headed there, just a transit onto our final destination, which, if you’ve read our last blog, you’d know it obviously isn’t China. Or Russia.
Oslo airport was a haven of tranquility and the immigration guy was chatty, nice and jovial and if you’d stuck a pointy helmet on him he’d have been the picture of a Viking. He was so disappointed we were only staying for a night… Lovely guy… Take note US immigration!
From Oslo we’d gone for upgrading to Premium Economy for the onward flight. It was almost the same price to fly from Oslo premium than fly from London cattle class, and it would be rude not to. So we did.
After a leisurely breakfast we checked in for our flight, skipping all the heaving masses queuing for economy and waltzed to the front flashing our premium economy tickets! We then headed for the Premium ticket lounge and indulged in the complimentry bubbles and snacks before heading for the plane for boarding. The seats on Norse were huge and the recline made a dentist chair look upright. It was all very nice but with awful food for veggies – even Linda disapproved! But we managed to get a little sleep on the overnight flight and arrived to find one of bags had split in baggage reclaim.
We double bag our main luggage incase of this, but our bits and pieces luggage we hadn’t bothered to do as it doesn’t contain our handlebars, seats and other heavy bike components, lesson learned here though, and we think only lost our glasses cleaning spray, so not too bad. Or possibly more, but that’s the advantage of getting older, you forget so much you can’t rember if you’ve lost something so you’re not bothered. Result!..And after a bit of duck tape we went to get a taxi to our hotel.
The airport have an automated ticket system for taxis, you go to a terminal, press a button for the taxi type you want (small or large) and then a ticket prints out with a bay number, the drivers name and even a picture of the driver too! All very flash and impressive.
We walked down to bay 7 only to find that our driver and taxi weren’t actually the ones in the bay, so had to walk a fair hike back to get another ticket, and then off to another bay at then other end of the bays to find again, wrong taxi.
The third time our driver was in the bay and we set off for our hotel .. and they say computers make things easier…
We always allow a few days for Tilly to catch up when we arrive at our destination just incase she’s delayed, some for jet lag and some for site seeing and acclimatisation, which we are most certainly going to need as it’s flipping hot and humid here.
Welcome to the bustling capital of Thailand – Bangkok!
Having had to scrap our planned China and Vietnam tour, we’ve gone for a Thailand tour instead and our welcome to the country by the taxi driver and the hotel staff certainly made us feel very welcome, something the Chinese Visa department didn’t!
We had a couple of hours kip and then ventured out to a supermarket to stock up on supplies. That was weird, the place was full of M&S, Waitrose, Iceland and Greggs products, so maybe I won’t starve out here with my dislike of Asian food after all. We’ll find out!
The next day was Tilly Assembled day. The hotel popped us in the maintenance man’s room, where he happily sat and watched and often leant a hand in putting Tilly back together. I’m actually not keen on help, though it’s very nice of people to do so. It puts me off my routine and I get muddled up so everything actually takes longer! But he was a lovely guy and we shared numerous laughs about how big Tilly was!
Ooooh Tilly in Thailand 🇹🇭!