Thailand Here We Come (Part 1)

Annie and I have a load of catching up to do on our blog.  It was hard to keep up in Australia whilst connecting with family and friends and even harder to contemplate whilst camping.  Annie is having computer issues but promises to do updates on her Australian adventures and impressions of Thailand. My focus for now will be to update our travel to Thailand.

Our trip to Thailand started with a 90-minute drive to the airport. Two airports service Brisbane; the major airport is located in Brisbane and is home to the major high-cost airlines. The low-cost, budget airlines fly out of the Gold Coast Airport,http://goldcoastairport.com.au which is a small regional airport some 40 kilometers from Brisbane.

Gold Coast Queensland

Annie and I were flying with Scoot Airlines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoot whose airfares were around 35% cheaper than the established carriers so we gave up some luxuries for the cheaper fare. That said by the time I selected our premium seats and 80kgs of baggage the airfare started to add up.

Boeing 777 to Singapore

 On our arrival at the airport we were confronted with a very long check-in line, which moved forward at glacial pace. We were flying with four large bags and a backpack each and we were a little worried about how they would calculate our checked baggage. Thankfully all was well as the total baggage came to a cumulative total of 73kgs with an allowance of 80kg

I had some trepidation about presenting my passport to the immigration officer at the airport as someone (me) had put my fairly new passport through the washing machine and it came out looking a little worse for wear. I need not have worried as the officer looked at it, said washing machine, I nodded and she just smiled. No doubt it wasn’t the first laundered passport she has seen.

Paying a little extra for the premium seats turned out to be a great idea as Annie and were seated at the back of the aircraft in a bank of just two seats with extra legroom. We had room to move and didn’t have to share our space with anyone. We took some snacks with us so we didn’t have to buy food onboard.  That said the menu was extensive and was fairly priced.

We both had loaded movies onto our laptops as there was no onboard, free entertainment. Watching a few movies made the time pass quickly and before we knew it we were descending into Singapore http://www.changiairport.com presenting us we a view of a multitude of shipping in all shapes and sizes anchored offshore..

One of the drawbacks of flying with a low-cost airline is that you have to put up with some cost-cutting measures. In this instance even though we were transferring from one Scoot flight to another to another in Singapore we had to clear Singaporean immigration and customs, collect our bags and then proceed to the Scoot counter on another level to check in for our next flight.

All very annoying and time consuming! At our count we went through six security checks at Changi Airport. It is a shame we ran out of time at the airport, as it is easily one of the best airports in the world. How many airports offer a butterfly garden, a swimming pool and a free cinema to its patrons amongst many other things?

Changi Airport

Having cleared all checkpoints we waited to board our next flight for Bangkok.