We're home, bit of a nightmare trip, not so much the travel as the really annoying admin issues.. We had our passports and residency cards triple/quadrouple checked at departure, not sure why. And the flight was a long 12 hours where I barely dozed off... but getting back to Schipol was where it all really went wrong
Tired and cranky, the passport system is fucking broken here, it looked like 2 or 3 777's arrived from various places at the same time, so 1200-1500 people, not all dutch nationals.. descended on Passport control, who simply can't cope. Took us well over 1hr to filter down weaving queues and holds and stops and go that way, no, that way... to the 2.... repeat 2.... customs agents processing the non EU passports but in the EU (residents) line of 500+ people..
Shocking, just shocking... this is something they need to fix. Schipol is one of the busiest airports in the world, but they can't handle a decent sized plane landing from outside Europe.
And.... after finally getting through, they didn't post our luggage on the baggage list, the only Bangkok flight was on belt 15 but didn't match our flight number, and when I finally got through another queue at the service desk. was told it was at belt 20... which had no details of which flight it was... nice. Thankfully the luggage was there though so at least we didn't lose anything.
Took us nearly 2 hours in total to get out of the airport and on a train, which thankfully was easier going, though Jirawan was a bit annoyed with me for not switching seats at Rotterdam, it turned out she wanted to face the direction of travel... and I didn't click she was annoyed at facing back....she's still a bit ticked off with me but she's as cranky today as I was yesterday, we just need to rest and recover.
But we got home, had some food and fluids and went to bed.
We got up early and its bloody cold here innit.
I LOVED my time in Chiang Mai, it wasn't a typical tourist trip, we spent most of our time at home, doing a bit of work, going about daily business, eating at a few outdoor places and 1 family meal with Jirawans son and gf, but it was so nice just to live a normal Thai life for 3 weeks.
Hua hin didn't grab us, but we will probably escape there from time to time, maybe somewhere else we'll see...
Retirement there will be so nice, a few more trips to settle things and we will make that jump.. Can't wait.
Ahthankyew
