Planes, Trains and Automobiles (Escalators and Conveyor belts but no Elevator)
Entry posted by Mallard ·
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My journey from Bangkok to my house in Clonmel, Ireland took me just under 24 hours. I left my room in Muang Thong after 6am on Tuesday 3rd. Bought 2 bottles of Genmai Oishi green tea (my 5 week supply) and then taxi to airport was easy. Nobody queuing at the check in desk for Etihad to Abu Dhabi so got checked in super fast, 3kgs over the limit but they said nothing, no problem (unlike the penny pinching fucks at Ryanair. I'm ashamed it's an Irish airline). So I asked if the flight was full, and the moderately attractive check in desk girl said no. Good news. Then I took a flyer for signing up to be a gold member for Etihad but the leaflet just waffled on and gave no real details of the benefits. Whatever. So I ate Burger King and looked for cigarettes but the duty free had no Benson or Malboro but about 20 obscure brands I'd never heard of. Stupid Suwanabhumi. So onto the plane. It was empty. I had all the row to myself so after take off I lay down and slept for five hours. At last, there is a first time for everything huh? When we landed in Abu Dhabi airport I had 2 hours to waste, not too long. Abu Dhabi had Benson and Hedges so I bought 400 fags for my friends. The airport there is cool. It's so small and nice, no long walks anywhere. So when there I went to check for prices of ipods for my poor friend who had her ipod stolen at Khao San. I don't think it's cheaper than Ireland or Bangkok. Anyway these guys working at the airport are big into pressure selling. I walked into the electronic store and got one step before a guy comes up with "Hello sir, nice to see you. Anything I can help you with?". Nope, I was just looking. I was asked the same damn question 3 times before I made it to the ipods and this was a damn small store too. Anyway I took a quick glance around as I stopped by the glass cabinet containing the mp3's. Nobody was around me. So I turn to look at them and FOOOOK!!! "Hello sir, what can I interest you in, we have many good choices." The fucker must have come up through a secret compartment in the floor. Anyway I said ipods and he started rambling on about itrees or ilegs or some other rip off version. 6gbs, free headphones blah blah. I said it was for a friend and just checking. These guys make me so nervous. He was staring at me with manic eyes like he expected me to whip out a credit card and buy all of his crappy ******* ishods that he can't sell no matter hard he tries. So I grabbed my phone out and said I'd call my friend (untruth number one) and ran off. But with all the damn pressure selling I forgot the prices. So I had to go back. This time I managed to compose myself to expect the hard sell. I looked around, no sign of the little prick (he was quite small). So I headed quickly for the ipods. This time it took about 4.5 seconds for him to get to me. "Hello sir, decided yet on your purchase sir??" (Manic Arab Midget Salesman stares at me like a ***** in heat who is locked in a cage 5 feet away from 10 horny soi dogs). **** off I felt like telling him. He went back to plugging the free headphones, big gaudy plastic monstrous things I wouldn't get paid for taking. I asked him for a pen and took down the prices. Ah iriver, thats the name of it. He must be on a commision to sell those fuckers. I wrote down the price and he asked me if I'd be back. I said in two weeks (untruth number two). I imagine he will be waiting in his underground compartment two weeks from now for me, iriver in one hand, shitty headphones in the other. I hope he doesn't take it too hard when I don't show. On the other hand he is sure to recognize me when I do go through Abu Dhabi in 5 weeks time. Maybe he'll give me a free machete to the cranium instead of the headphones. Anyway I'm cynical by nature so the very fact he was trying his hard sell tactics on a cheaper "better" mp3 player has convinced me it's a heap of crap and I will never buy it. Arab salesmen are putting iriver out of business. On the plane out of Abu Dhabi to the green and lovely pastures of my mother land the plane was full. Full of ******* kids. Screaming, crying, shouting playing kids and babies. Some nightmare I'm telling you. 7 hours of it. I was sat across from one kid who didn't shut up for the whole flight. Giving his dad a running commentary on every scene of the movies he watched. Then he put the camera of the view outside the plane on his screen. "Hey dad, dad is that Dublin?" We were thirty thousand feet in the air, two hours from Ireland, that white fluffy thing is a ******* cloud you stupid little ****. Also on the plane I was sat next to a Pakistani girl. We were talking and she was going to visit her sister in Ireland. She was actually going to a small town in the south of Ireland where her sister worked. That small town was my town, Clonmel. That was too weird, of all the places, she was going there and so was I (Small world indeed #1). What was even weirder was that she didn't think to offer me a ******* lift. Damn. Anyway one friend told me etihad isn’t good but the seats are comfy and the in-flight entertainment is great. You can choose start time of movies and pause, like dvd and the choices are many. Thumbs up to etihad.So in Dublin I got my bags and got the bus to the train station. I only had a t-shirt but it wasn't that cold. Nice surprise but it was summer I guess. At the train station I got my ticket from a machine. No actual person in the ticket booth as it was closed so no chance to try and score a student ticket. Damn, 32 euros for the damn train. Welcome back to ripoff republic Darren. Train was delayed for 25 minutes, not too bad. What really pissed me off was the fact that I walked on to the train, sat for about an hour and a half and got off the train all without having to show my ticket once. I could have just walked on and saved myself 32 flippin’ quid. Next time I won't pay. They will probably check but if they do I'll feign ignorance and say I thought you had to pay on board. Stepping off the train my Mam runs up. So good to see her again. ¤Ô´¶Ö§áÃèÃÒ¡à Å . We get her car home which takes 30 minutes or more. At my home I walk into the kitchen and open the fridge. Right in front of me is a big bottle of ¹éÓ¨ÔéÃä¡è ÃÃäÃÇà am I still in Bangkok? Actually my Mammy thought it was Chinese because she saw a Chinese guy buying ten bottles of it and he told her it was good so she bought one (small world indeed #2). Then I have an Irish stew...so so good. Rice is nice but damn I love potatoes. The potato is hands down the greatest invention of all time. So when I got in the door it was just before 12am on Wednesday Irish time so I had been on the go for almost 24 hours. At home I also met the new dog. He is one ugly dog, but he's cool. He gets his own journal soon. Then me and Mammy stayed up till 3am for a long chat and that was it. Next day (today) I had a great Irish fry for breakfast and saw my maniac of a nephew who told me he loved me and made me feel so happy. Then we had a wrestling match and I lost. Good to be back home finally.
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