Beautiful Flower

Beautiful Flower
from country living website

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

From Monday to Saturday at Thailand (part 3-end)


Here we are at the last part of my story when I had wonderful days at Thailand and I’m sorry for the long distance between the second part and this third part ^__^

Basically I have poured out most of all the stories at those 2 parts so in this part I would like to tell the story about my way back from Thailand to Jakarta, started from the office, hotel, Suvarnabhumi airport, Soekarno Hatta airport, and finally my boarding house. Looks quite long eh? For me it is because totally it took about 12 hours started from the hour when I woke up on Saturday morning, left the hotel to go to Suvarnabhumi airport, arrived at Jakarta, waited for taxi, and arrived at boarding house finally.

So that Friday night, I safely reached the hotel with Ms Eda and was preparing my things to check out on early Saturday morning. When I went down to reception to inform about early check out and also was going to pay the hotel’s cost, they directly offered me to prepare American breakfast (ABF) that morning so I could bring it together with me along to airport. Good service from Richmond hotel and I do recommend this hotel for business trip to you who are going to visit near Nonthaburi area. I was quite surprised when they offered me the breakfast package although I realized that I still had 1 left of breakfast coupon with me :D And at MBK I’ve already bought some small bread also for in case I didn’t receive the breakfast from hotel and I can eat that bread for breakfast at airport.

Thank God I had a good short sleep that night and I woke up around 3.30am to prepare myself and my things to check out and go to airport. Because I brought some Thaicom t-shirts with me from K. Nong, so my luggage became quite heavy of those additional stuffs. And that time I realized how I was so naïve not asking the hotel whether they have already provided towels, slippers, and clothes hanger for the guest. Because I did bring my own towels (1 big and 1 small), sandal, and clothes hangers too that at the end those things were mostly useless because I was using the hotel’s stuffs. Oh my gossshhh!! When I remembered this, I could laugh out loud over myself!! Hahaha…. Why?? Because I realized that I never stay at that kind of hotel before during my adult time, so I don’t know if hotel with 3 or 4 stars level is providing some usual stuff for their guests’s convenient, so they don’t have to bring their own stuff. I did traveling with my parents when I was a kid and my mom was the one who packing up my necessary things. So this trip to Thailand was a new thing for me especially related to staying at the hotel ^__^ And next time if I’m going to stay at that kind of hotel again, I don’t need to carry my own stuff too many then *big grin*

So after finishing the check out, paid the hotel bill, I looked for a taxi and bingo! There was 1 taxi in front of the hotel and the driver was quite familiar with Indonesia because of Bali when he asked me which country that I came from. Around 5.30am I left the hotel and because it’s still early morning, there was no traffic jam at all (of course! ^__^) so the driver could run his car in high speed. That morning when I arrived at the airport (departure area), there were already busy morning for the airport officers. People from many countries had already been occupying the departure area with their luggages to catch up the planes.

Well, with additional weight on my luggage, I had a difficulty to bring it along the way to the check in counter. While my notebook is quite heavy too, my hands were full and I had to use all my strength when I was going to put my luggage to the scale. I didn’t dare to look at the number shown and wished for my luggage is still under the limit that allowed for economy class…and thank God it did :D hahaha….

Okay, luggage done and suddenly I remembered that I still carried 1 bottle of water in my bag and I needed to empty it because of the airplane regulation. So I was going to the toilet and from there I went to the exchange counter to exchange my last Thai Baht into USD (this one I also almost forgot *grinning*). After that, next step was the immigration section and the queue was quite long with people from various countries standing along the queue. To kill the time, I was playing person’s guessing with myself. That man is the businessman from Japanese or China or Korea. That man is the tourist from one of the country at Europe, while there were also a group of tourists from China or Japan (I forgot) who had a mistake in filling the form which is to be submitted along to the immigration officer (I forgot the name because I didn’t use this form). I saw that the queue was in orderly arranged and the officers there were quite tough (you can see from their faces). I wonder if every officer at airport (especially the immigration officer) has to be tough because their responsibility we believe is quite hard too.

After finishing the immigration process, I kept following the flow of other people with opening my eyes as big as I could *when I felt still sleepy zzzz….* to see the direction from any signs at the airport. And taaarraaaa…here I was in the process to check the carry in luggage. I had a funny accident also in this area; still I can’t avoid having a big grin when I remembered this memory. We need to put down our each bag (if we carried more than 1 bag) into a plastic box to be scanned on the conveyor belt; one bag one box. If you carried notebook, you need to put it in a different box too besides the notebook case. And the jacket too, we need to open and put it in another box. If we can get through the security door without the alarm that rings and also our stuff is all okay, then we’ll be fine. Sometimes if the alarm rings, the officer will check our body using the scanner (you know that thing right) to find out the cause. I didn’t realize that the hotel put 1 glass of water inside my breakfast box and that what caused me to stay for a while standing in front of the office while he’s checking my stuff. I was scared to death that time if there’s something dangerous or restricted thing they found between my stuff. Indeed!! The water was dangerous and they took it away (be confiscated). What a relieved!!! Ffiiiiuuuhhhh…*removing the sweat* That time the officer looked at me when he found the water and I just put a sweet smile in my face, pretending that I didn’t know that the water is forbidden and I didn’t know too that thing is in the box. Hahahaha… what an experience that is so excited!!!

After successfully passed the test *smirk* I walked through a quite long area that full with stores and restaurants where we can stop to buy gifts or having the breakfast. And also the duty free counter for taking care the tax of the gifts that we bought (for tourist especially). This area is heading to the boarding area for different planes and I just like the ambiance right there you know ^__^ I saw branded perfumes, cosmetics, bags, belts, watches, pashmina, cute dolls, delicious snacks, and wines too at those stores. Hmmm…get ready to be tempted, guys!! And watch out for your wallet hahaha….

So, here I was, near the boarding gate D4 where I waited for my plane to get ready. Generally, I can say that I like Suvarnabhumi airport; the transparent white ceiling, the huge and roomy areas, the modern looking…the total ambiance felt so clean and neat ^__^ I hope for a better improvement of Soekarno Hatta airport too frankly speaking and I believe it because the best is yet ahead :D

Not long after the passengers at gate D3 were all in to the plane, they opened the D4 gate and no delay. While waiting for that, I ate my breakfast and I found out that I was totally hungry and that time was around 7am which is usually on that time I have my breakfast day to day *ups, you know my little secret then :D


And surprisingly, there were 2 men sitting next to me and they are Indonesians! So far flying to Thailand and here we go, the same nationality :p And when the clock was closing to 8.30am, more passengers were coming and there were more Indonesians at the same flight with me. Well, welcome aboard to you all ^__^ The airport provides 2 LCD screen TV for us to watch something like National Geography or Animal Planet during the waiting time to enter the plane, which is my favourite show. These are some pictures that I took when I was waiting for the gate to open and waiting for enter the plane. 




The morning was getting bright as the clock ticking and more people have come to boarding gate D4 with me waiting for the plane to be ready. And finally we got on the plane, I sat with Indonesian people again like when I left Jakarta *actually I wished for a foreign person so I can chat with him or her* and the plane was not so full like the reverse route that I had earlier. Because I was still sleepy, so I tried to sleep a while and when I woke up I had a nice surprise which is the breakfast that makes me curious of its taste; is it going to be as delicious as the lunch that I had from Jakarta to Thailand? Indeed!! I’m sorry I forgot the food that I ate during both flights, but I can sure you the food is fit into our stomach (Asian or European people) and halal too for Moslem. One thing that I like is the butter salted they give to passengers; it’s not too salty and just perfect for the bread ^__^ Yes, they gave bread too besides of the main menu for the beginning and for drinks they also have wines, juice, tea, and water. Well, I’d love to take another flights with Thai Airways next time to another destinations and find out more about their food besides enjoying the good looking of their crews *smirk*

We had a safe flight, landed smoothly, and the heavy rain welcomed me that day at Soekarno Hatta airport. I wonder why it was quite long to wait for the luggage to come out. One of foreign man was a bit upset when talked to his friend in the phone about this waiting time related to his friend had been waiting to pick him up. After collecting my luggage, it took about almost 1 hour for me to wait for the taxi and how weird the weather was; the rain was only around airport area and there was no rain when the taxi entered the toll gate. But it started to rain again when I almost arrived at the boarding house. Thankfully no traffic jam too along the way from the airport :D Next time if I don’t carry too large luggage, I would prefer to take Damri bus from airport because it’s cheaper, faster, and convenient too.

Yay!! This is the end of my story guys :D and I hope next time I’ll get a chance to write another story from another place ^__^ Have a wonderful day!