First, I wouldn't of been stuck flightless here in BKK, if I didn't fly out BKK-MNL Monday Nov. 24th as planned on Star Alliance award tix. I was going to visit and old friend (retired gringo) who lives outside Olangapo.

But didn't go because he gave me an incomplete contact phone number, with no address, and my return * award Biz class tix could only be confirmed in economy class. On this portion of my spur of the moment trip to the PI. (Hindsight, what a spoiled dummy I was)

So now I'm about to leaving Friday morning Nov. 28th via ground transportation: BKK-Hat Yai-Kuala Lumpur trip scheduled for 36 hours. The ground trip set me back 6,500 Baht, but it also covers one nite hotel in Hat Yai, and one nite in KL, 5 meals, and a one million Baht insurance policy per person. My one nite in Hat Yai, I'm planning to chase some local tail:-)

Then hopefully get to KL by 20:00 Saturday nite, and to the airport to catch either of the last two flights (21:45 or 22:45) to SIN. Spend the nite at Changi Int'l Airport, and catch the Sunday morning United flight to NRT and fly home. If all goes well?

To be continued, God willing

i think the only way out via air is utapao (pattaya) to samui on bangkok airways. from samui, via bangkok airways, you can go to (i) HKG, (ii) SIN, or (iii) phuket, there a few flights out of phuket that do not go through bkk, most go to australia so if you don't live there, phuket doesn't help much !!

i've been considering overland routes to get out but i'm going to stick with samui/HKG if things really get bad (it takes weeks to open the airport). in the meantime, bkk is probably one of the best places to get stuck. it is dirt cheap compared to most cities in the world and of course you have the ladies.

Sometime ago I considered taking the train from Singapore through KL to Bangkok. Does this still run (assuming it once did and is not a figment of my imagination) and, if so, wouldn't this be a good way out (assuming it is not fully booked)?

seat61.com gives decent info about train service. you can take the train and i imagine there are alot of people using that option that really have to get home.

a buddy of mine took the train from southern thailand to KL a few years ago. he told me about the site noted above. he loves to ride the rails. traveled all over india on the train and claims he never road on the top of the train. i guess he was lucky.......

Quite a few airlines have run "escape flights" out of Utapao Airport e.g. to KL, to Singapore and even to some long haul places.

From Phuket, there are of course flights to KL, Singapore and HK besides quite a few other places as per normal. That would mean overland to Phuket a day earlier of course.

Overland to KL is a pretty long haul via Hatyai but, a night in Hatyai may prove to be interesting if you know where it's at in that small town. Mostly BBS take out shops as far as I remember with quality down 2 knotches as compared with 10 years ago.

Today, Air Asia offered me a flight to KL out of Utapao which I did not take as I am not due to fly until Tuesday. Prefer to await Suvharnabhumi and hoping it does open if things resolve themselves.

I have been told that its the King's birthday on the 5th and THINGS MUST BE RESOLVED BY THEN.

So, I am taking my changes but, if things don't start to unravel by tomorrow evening, I will have to travel to Utapoa and escape from there provided that option is still open.

an article in the bangkok post (bangkokpost.com) made it sound like utapao was getting a bit crowded. i guess people are starting to gather there even though they don't have confirmed tickets. they are just "living" there praying that they can get a seat on one of these escape flights.

let's hope the 5th/king's bday can break this stalemate. again, i'm not complaining. not a bad place to be stuck and if you have to leave, there are ways to get out.

I read some of the "escape flights" from Utapao where being handled where they were checking in passengers and processing all the formalities at various unnamed hotels in Bangkok which are only named when people actually have reservations. Once checked in and processed in Bangkok the passengers are then bussed in groups all the way strait to the plane, thus off loading and disbursing all the passenger processing tasks that Utapao has inadequate facilities for. Probably players like AirAsia can process a flight with shoestring facilities. But I'd suspect un-ticketed passengers queuing at Utapao are wasting their time.

As an update, all the flights up to and including the 2rd of Dec out of Phuket (for KL Malaysia) are FULLY SOLD!

This as far as Air Asia is concerned.

There has also been a huge rush for bus tickets to Phuket and other southern gateways.

Not sure about the flights to Singapore, surely that would be similar since trapped tourists / visitors are escaping via these routes.

Even checked Vientienne's flight to KL and that's sold out too.

What's the best thing to do? Now that I have just let out the white stuff blocking my brain, I have a new idea which I have tested.

I won't post it here now. Have to be selfish cos I don't want that to backfire for my "escape" on the 2nd or else, I would be in trouble if others do what I want to to!

has anyone followed up on this 2,000thb/day stipend from the tourism authority ? if i can get that, i'll stay as long as they keep paying the 2,000thb.

i remember seeing someone post about going to the tourism authority office in pattaya but i'm in bkk. plan to look into it today.

i checked the website, tourismthailand.org.

you can't get 2000 cash, which is not a big surprise. but you can get free rooms at a number of hotels listed on the site. if price exceeds 2,000 then you pay the difference.

president solitaire was one. i'm at president park so hoping it gets added to the list.

check the website if you need this assistance.

Fellow members, I got my butt home! A day late, and a few dollars short. But home!

The road trip went according to plan. My one day delay was getting out of SIN to NRT. All the flights were full going out to NRT on Sunday Dec. 1st. Luckily SQ re-routed me and my award tix to Osaka, and I later caught UA's flight to SFO.

So ground trip cost me approx. $225 bucks. And my one-way tix KL-SIN on SQ cost me around $135 bucks. My ideal way to fly out of BKK was Phuket-SIN, but the first available confirmed seat was departing Dec. 1st. Too late, which is why I took the ground route. And it allowed to see the south of Thailand.

My one night in Hat Yai was very interesting. At my hotel's restaurant, there was a waitress so beautiful! If I had more time to invest, and wasn't so tired, I would of made more serious advances. Went to take a nap, and woke up around 2 am and set out to venture.

Found a mamasan in the streets offering girls and their services for 800 Baht. Which she said included sex and massage for two hours. One beautiful twenty year old came by me on a motor bike, but she was on her way to a date at a hotel a stone's throw away from me. I knew there was no other chick like her at the time that could take place. So went back to my room and called in a massage girl for a two hour massage, and the going rate 300 Baht for two hours. She wanted a 700 Baht tip for sex, but since it is all "covered". I said no thank you. But in the end, I got all the fondling I wanted, happy ending, and a great Thai massage for a 300 Baht tip.

Next day we started out early for KL, and the rest is history.

Peace, sf4dfish

Glad I stayed in BKK instead of trucking all over SEA trying to get another flight out. As I posted in Asia Chat, I took the Thai Air flight out of UTP to LAX (with a stopover in Osaka, apparently for security check) leaving 12/2. Even though we left 7 hours late out of UTP, it beats taking a bus or train to Singapore or Kuala Lumpur to catch a flight. What was surprising was that the Thai flight to LAX wasn't full. Would have thought there would have been a lot of Americans looking to get out, with supposedly some 300,000 foreign tourists stranded in BKK as of the day I left.

sf4, hehe, even in the midst of escaping from LOS your monger instincts still appear to be in tact. U shoulda swung by Jkt w/me. Glad you got home and what an ordeal you went through. My flight home on the 2nd was jammed packed with LOS tourists, and many had similar stories to tell. I'm curious about the Hat Yai beauties, perhaps when we next get together.

S4,

2 Canadians were less lucky than you as their van overturned and they ended up DEAD.

Hatyai is the mongering epicentre of the Malaysians and Singapore guys and if you like their kind of preference in looks, there are pretty nice SYTs to be had at the BBS there for much less than Bangkok for sure.

It's been a while since I visited and I am always tempted if an excuse comes up that triggers the itch to go again.

Then, the thought of rushing in/through with several hundreds of others to get out did not appeal to my instincts!

Glad to hear you made it safely as Thai roads are not the place to be when you don't have a reliable driver in place.

For those who chose to dally and enjoy a relatively empty capital city, it proved to be a buyer's market here in Bangkok!

glad several members made it home safely. today, i went to the thai airways ticket office on lan luang rd. waited about 1 hour and reserved premium economy on the BKK-LAX nonstop for dec 11. could have got out earlier but figured i'd let a few days pass to let the masses get through the airport.

sojourner:

were you on the airbus or the 777 ? i'll live with a refueling stop in osaka but they told me i'm on the airbus and that one doesn't need to stop. if you were on the 777, then i'll keep my fingers crossed that they didn't lie and i will get to go w/o stop for fuel.

Merlin, yeah like I stated before, "I'm a spoiled dummy" And I got tix's for another BKK run Jan. 10-13, 2009. After that run, I will really have to think hard about cumming back to LOS?

So, let's plan a JKT Indo run next year sf4dfish

Crazier, I hope you take full advantage of the bountiful harvest presented you! sf4dfish

From what I am hearing, and consistent with what Sojourner stated, the issue with the stop in Osaka as opposed to a nonstop has to do with TSA and security concerns about aircraft coming straight from an airport in Thailand that does not have security controls that meet international standards. Hopefully, the flights out of Suewannabangbang will not have this problem, or if they do, it will only be temporary for a day or so until their security equipment is up and running at full throttle.

Sf4,

Any1 willing to drop more than a few pennies will be swamped from what I have observed.

Then, I have only been "window shopping" these nights including tonight when surprisingly quite a few places remained open in Nana and surrounds.

Sadly, my fav place was shut and I came back without company.

Dropped by to barfine a door girl I "earmarked" from a previous night at Rainbow4.
When I saw her again, I realised that my beer goggles were playing tricks on me that evening!

I got out of Bkk on the last Emirates flight before they closed the airport. I only heard about the closing when I got back home and all I could think wile others where telling me how lucky I am, was that if I had taken the next flight out I would still be in paradise rather then stuck at work...

All, several carriers ran "charter" flights out of U-Tapo for employee stranded.. UA ran one from HKG for UA and NW employees stranded in BKK.. The scene in U-Tapo is madness.. Only one x-ray machine for everything.. hand searches of everyone.. if you can imagine doing literally everything manually, that is what it looked like.. some carriers loaded ULD's at U-Tapo with bags, some x-rayed and loaded them remotely.. Catering was literally just whatever could be walked up to the plane.. so for most it was beverages only, unless catered upline (at the previous station)...