|
|
All smiles on the van |
|
|
2023-03-29 |
|
|
Cream welcomes us back |
|
|
2023-03-29 |
|
|
Entering the Kingdom |
|
We arrived at Suvarnabhumi Airport, just before midnight (1/28). which was just about 30 hours since we woke up in Escondido to begin the trip.
As [I noted a couple of days ago](/timeline/event/397), our driver was cool with us either staying the night in Bangkok, or pushing straight through to our house in Ban Rung. We opted for the latter, mostly because we were so excited to "get home."
But first, we had to deal with claiming our luggage, and passing thru customs and immigration.
Muu found a Asiana airlines liaison who was key in accomplishing all three steps:
* He got us two dollies large enough to hold our five bags, two boxes, and the guitar
* He literally pulled the bags and boxes off the baggage conveyor belt and loaded them on the dollies
* He walked us to the oversize baggage area to claim the guitar — he pushed one dolly, I pushed the other, and Muu pushed the boys in the stroller.
* My guitar was nowhere to be seen, so he called the baggage handlers on the plane and they sent a picture of my guitar in the hold, then hand carried it to us.
* He then walked us to customs where he got us to the front of the line and we were waived through in about 60 seconds after only one bag was x-rayed.
* Finally, he walked us to immigration
At immigration, the line for foreigners was "a mile long." With toddlers, you pretty much have to let everybody else deplane ahead of you, and even with the time we made up at customs, I still dreaded waiting in a long line with two irritable toddlers in a stroller that cannot hold them for long when they are determined to get out.
Not to mention the two dollies with 350 pounds luggage! I was beginning to think about how I wished I got the boys Thai passports before we left Thailand so they could skate thru the line for Thai citizens — which was three people deep — including Muu!
I suggested that Muu ask the Thai-line immigration officer if the kids could just enter as Thai citizens without Thai passports, but with their birth certificates.
Of course the answer was no — They would enter as US citizens and furthermore would have a 45-day visa on entry, at which point they would need to exit the country. They could then reenter on Thai passports, but for now they were tourists in their country of birth.
The exceedingly good news was that the officer processed all four of us. She stamped Muu in and issued 45-day tourist visas to me and the twins. Another stroke of luck! |
2023-03-29 |
|
|
Preparations in Thailand for our arrival |
|
This week was a buzz of activity: Muu who packing and mothering the twins. Our sister-in-law Mare was searching for cheap fares and I was trying to find transportation to the airport, as well as checking on visa information.
I was also packing and scanning documents — Some items we would leave behind in the states and needed to br transported up to Orange County where JP would store them for us.
Muu was also making arrangements in Thailand for our arrival. We thought we would be arriving on Monday Jan 30. This would allow us to get the boys Thai passports in Bangkok, before heading to Ban Rung where we would throw a surprise birthday party for the twins on Feb 1.
Muu had contacted our trusty van driver a couple of days ago to let him know we were coming but we weren't sure of the itinerary. We also knew we would need help transporting all our luggage and the boys from the airport to a hotel and then home to Ban Rung by van. So, Muu told Tong to make arrangements to get to Bangkok and coordinate with the driver to pick us up at the airport.
We wanted to surprise of family, so we told only Tong we were coming and swore him to secrecy.
Everything was coming together nicely, when Mare called and said there was a flight arriving two days days earlier for the same price. Muu was out shopping for a new stroller at the time and didn't answer her phone, so I made a command decision and told Mare to book it.
It wasn't long before I realized that we would be arriving on the weekend when the passport office would be closed in Bangkok, so we would need another night in a Bangkok hotel, but it was too late, the non-changeable flight was booked.
Then when Muu came home, she launched into action to move the Thailand timetable up...
The driver was able to accommodate the change, and Tong and Bing got on a shuttle bus to Bangkok right away.
Muu said that she had also found out that we could get the boys their passports in Sisaket, so now we began to entertain the idea of just driving straight from the airport to Ban Rung, since we really had no obligations in Bangkok.
We would arrive at Suvarnabhumi airport at around midnight on Saturday. And our driver, who is incredibly easy going, said that we could decide when we arrived whether to go to hotel for the night or go straight to Ban Rung from the airport. |
2023-03-29 |
|
|
Bing |
|
Ban Rung - 3/29/2023 |
2023-03-28 |
|
|
Captain |
|
Dhan and Tae's baby boy |
2023-03-28 |
|
|
Captain |
|
Ban Rung - 3/26/2023 |
2023-03-28 |
|
|
Dhan |
|
Tae's husband |
2023-03-28 |
|
|
Dhan |
|
3/29/2023 - Ban Rung |
2023-03-28 |
|
|
Bed & Breakfast |
|
|
2023-03-27 |
|
|
Made it to Korea — halfway home... |
|
The trip from LA to Seoul was really difficult. The boys nervously tapped the seats in front of them which was irritating to those passengers. However, the boys were not very vocal, but they did want to escape their seats.
About 23 hours into the trip we are departing Seoul for the six hour flight to Bangkok. The kids (and we the parents) are already exhausted.
Incheon airport is immaculately clean and beautiful, but the flight was delayed by over an hour, and there was no milk to be found in the terminal so the boys were miserable.
Once we got on the plane, though, they had some milk and the boys were falling asleep before we got off the ground. |
2023-03-27 |
|
|
Getting on the flight from Seoul to Bangkok |
|
1/28/2023 |
2023-03-27 |
|
|
Muu, DIcky, Terry |
|
Seoul Airport 1/28/2023 |
2023-03-27 |
|
|
Leaving the USA |
|
We woke up at 3:00 am to give ourselves plenty of time to make our flight out of the country.
Once we got everybody up, dressed, and loaded into the car, we first had to drive from San Diego to LAX arriving during rush hour. We were fortunate that we hit no major delays — our major slowdown was due to a rest stop to change diapers.
Once we arrived we had to get the suitcases out of the car top carrier, and remove it from the top of the car.
Simultaneously, we had to load and tape up two boxes each containing a car seat, a booster seat, some blankets, and other odds and ends.
Of course, all of this was happening at the curbside passenger drop off zone at one of the busiest airports in the world.
Meanwhile, we had to find the check-in counter, hold our place in line, and shuttle the five fully packed bags, two boxes, and one acoustic guitar from the curb to the counter as there were no skycaps handling our airline!
I wish we had more photos of this operation because it was really something to see, but we were all busy.
Check in went fairly smoothly though — all of our bags made the weight limit, and our tickets and travel documents were all in order. We did have to run the guitar over to a special "oversize counter," but that only took an extra five minutes.
Now that we were checked in and said our goodbyes to John, we had about 3 hours before flight time.
We didn't want to rus right through TSA though, because we were certain they would force us to discard our milk, and we were a bit worried that they may take the Dramamine we wanted to give the kids to calm them down.
Furthermore, I felt it would be nicer to wait outside as long as possible rather than being stuck at the gate waiting to board.
Once we did get on board we were facing a 13.5 hour first leg to Seoul, Korea. |
2023-03-27 |
|
|
Just before takeoff |
|
|
2023-03-27 |
|
|
Checked in |
|
LAX 1/27/2023 |
2023-03-27 |
