Goodbye Bangkok, hello Rio

My two regular readers will be aware of my holiday problems. In short, we (that’s me and my girlfriend) booked a three-week holiday in Thailand several months ago, which we have had to cancel as a result of the closure of Bangkok airport. While the airport has started to handle flights again, the huge backlog meant our flight on Saturday is cancelled.

I’ll admit that had we known how quickly the airport would be up and running again, we might have considered flying out a couple of days later, rather than cancelling the entire thing. On Monday, reports were saying the airport would be closed until the middle of next week and on Tuesday the reopening was put back to 15 December. That information influenced our decision to cancel and has turned out to be wholly wrong.

On the other hand, the situation at Bangkok’s international airport remains confusing and the Foreign Office is still recommending against travel through Bangkok indefinitely so perhaps cancellation was the best idea.

The actual process of cancellation has been wrought with difficulty. Since we arranged everything independently, I’ve had to contact five different hotels and three airlines, including the planned internal flights we had booked. It’s also been quite expensive because some of the accommodation was paid for in advance and is non-refundable (one place gave me a credit note, which was thoughtful). We were planning to fly with Air Asia from Krabi to Bangkok. This seems to be the Asian equivalent of Ryanair, with a customer service/refund policy to match, so I’m doubtful about wringing my ninety quid airfare out of them.

I’ve learnt a couple of lessons the hard way. Namely:

• Make sure your travel insurance covers you from the day you book the insurance, not the day you leave. If you only arrange it from the day you leave, and something unforseen happens before tha date (such as a flight cancellation), you can’t claim anything.
• When buying currency, consider paying £3 for the facility that allows you to sell it back at the rate you bought it for. I took my Thai currency back to the Post Office today and found that £250 had miraculously shrunk to £209.

Attentive readers will have noticed the title of this post mentions Rio. And yes, instead of going to Thailand, we are now going to Brazil instead. We start in Sao Paulo on Tuesday, travel along the Costa Verde via Paraty and finish up at Copacabana Beach, where we will be spending Christmas.

If I knew Portuguese I would now write something vaguely pertinent in said language. But as I don’t, I won’t. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to watch this.

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