The business class on Thai (or at least on that particular type of aircraft used by Thai for the Perth to Bangkok route) is nowhere near the level of those on Qantas or Singapore Airlines when I flew to India. However, it is still much roomier than the economy seats with just a 2-2-2 configuration. There is plenty of leg room and you do have your own mini screen, although like the Qantas flight from Sydney last month, you can change channels but you can’t rewind or pause your movie. I watched “Penelope” and the “Spiderwick Chronicles”. The food was reasonable with several courses and a choice for the main – I had snapper.
We left 20 or so minutes late and caught up some but not all of that delay. Getting through customs was quite quick but there was still a long wait for our bags, even though mine was one of the first cozen or so off. It was very easy to find the hotel rep and the car – a Mercedes – was called. It was still after midnight by the time I arrived at the Sofitel Centara Hotel.
This is a luxury hotel and I had a deluxe room on the 20th floor. The top 4 floors are Deluxe and you actually need a key to get to those floors on the lift. They also have a lounge on the 22nd but after midnight was a bit late to use it, although this morning I had a peek after breakfast. The weather was overcast or perhaps it was smog.
The room itself was very nice with a bit of a sitting room at one end. Again it was wasted with a late check in and early check out. It would be nice to stay a few days – maybe at the end of the trip. My room overlooks a school and the students were juts entering the building as I was looking at the view this morning.
I got to breakfast a bit after 8 and like a lot of these hotels there was quite a choice. I started with a couple of seafood skewers with prawns and fish, a small pork steak and a small piece of spinach omelette. I then had toast, bacon and a fried egg. Finally I had some fresh fruit and 2 small Danish pastries. There was fresh juice as well.
Suitably fortified, I was trying to work out how to call for a car, since it had been raining but then decided to walk instead. It was only 500m or so as it turned out. I met Chris, who I talked to on the phone and gave him a quick look at the system and was given some sample reports. I tried to create a setup program but must have missed a file since it didn’t install properly. Rather than fiddle about, I decided I’d leave till I got to the field office. A driver was called and we left in a Cab 4 Toyota ute. We stopped at a shopping mall right next to the hotel where I changed some money and bought some sunscreen, mosquito repellant and some drinks for the trip. We are getting just over 30 baht per $A now, about `10% higher than last year when I came for golf. Then we picked up my case and headed North. It was about 11:15 but then.
The trip was expected to be about 3 hours, which turned out to be about right and include a short stop for lunch about 2 hours in. This was at a small local eatery and I had some chicken curry and rice. This with a can of soft drink cost 80 baht. The trip started in the city and was mostly on main roads, usually at least 2 lanes. As we got further North we got into the country which is mostly flat. Then suddenly there were hills – rocky jagged ones – rising out of the otherwise flat plain. We passed through them and saw a temple on the side of one of them.
We drove through the town of Wichian Buri, which as I had been informed is quite small. The office is in a relatively new brick building with a number of containers and workshops nearby.
I met Spencer and James, the 2 supervisors. James left after a short time but will be abck on Friday for the next monthly shift. I was assigned an office and then headed back to check in to the hotel and drop off my bag so my driver could head back to Bangkok. I spent most of the rest of the day setting up. My attempts tomuse the network printer weren’t successful. Initially I installed the XP driver I found on a Thai download site for Kyocera. I then found a Vista driver on a website in the UK but this still didn’t work. By then someone had turned up with a HP printer which I have on my desk, together with a second screen (old CRT) and a keyboard. I got on the net without any problems and checked some emails . By the time they were sorted it was 6 and my (new) driver had been waiting for more than half an hour.
The hotel is 5 minutes past the town on the Bangkok side and about 15 minutes all up from the office. The room is quite spacious with grey marble tiles and pine furniture but definitely not the same standard as last night. It is similar to the hotel we stayed at in Pattaya last year and adequate for sleeping. It does have a wardrobe and so I have actually unpacked my case – something that never happened in NZ.
The company runs a canteen here with breakfast and dinner provided at the hotel site and lunch, so I’m told, delivered to the office. They also have a laundry service and you get your own little basket – sort of like a shopping basket with a lid. They were quite surprised when after writing my name on in English, I then wrote it in Thai as well, as I’d seen on the other baskets.
There were 2 Thai dishes and rice in a buffet style and a Western meal as well. I had some prawns in noodles and then steak, mash potatoes and vegetables plus a kidney bean salad. A banana was my dessert.
There really isn’t a lot to do once you’ve eaten (other than write the blog of course) We are too far out of town to walk there and there probably isn’t much to do once you get there. I’ve just checked the TV and there seems to be about 5 or so Thai channels only. Good thing a brought my books.
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