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Thursday 14th December 2000 Day 2 By the end of today we'll be in Bangkok! How amazing. We woke up at 5:00am, so only another 18 hours until we enter the strange lands of South East Asia. Julie vomited after singing "Happy Holidays" (our theme tune to this trip!). (Oh, by the way, today George W. Bush was finally named today as the President of the United States after weeks and weeks of re-counting.) We phoned home at 7:45am to say our au revoir. We left our room at 8:00am, checked-out and caught the hotel hopper to the terminal, eventually arriving at 9:00am. Just in time to check-in at the Thai Air desk, which wasn't the Thai Air desk at all, but Air Canada. Apparently they're all part of some Star Alliance group. A couple going on their honeymoon told us that we were standing in the wrong queue. The check-in desk was around the corner. Good job, otherwise we could of queued for twenty minutes only to be told to go around the corner! We went straight through into the departures lounge where we managed to negotiate the metal detector without setting the beep off! Also none of our bags were searched, much to the relief of a nervous Julie. We spent the next couple of hours around the shops where Hannah bought herself a watch. (Fossil £50) A bit expensive but it came in a nice tin! At 10:00am the gate number appeared on the screen for our flight (No.TG911). We made a move for gate 34, stopping en route at the toilets. Now I wasn't at all nervous, nor excited. I had no thoughts of fear or anxiety. In fact my mind was calm and my stomach was still but dear God my arse was shitting itself! It was also one of those awful shits without an ending. The ones where you have to stand up and walk out without reaching a satisfactory closure!When we reached the gate Julie phoned home. You could tell she was getting more and more wound up by her breathing, or perhaps hyperventilating would be a more accurate description. It was at this point that Julie admitted to worrying that Thai Air flight TG911 sounded too much like an air disaster movie! We didn't have long to wait before boarding. Before we knew it we were on the runway, yet it took another 40 minutes until the pilot said, "Prepare for take off". Strangely though it didn't feel as if we had been delayed. The take off was smooth, but it still spooked Julie. By the time they came around with the food we were already flying over Prague and Vienna. It was impossible to sleep despite having my eyes closed firmly, and my head on a pillow. Julie was sitting upright, playing a Gameboy, absolutely petrified! I'm writing this on the plane, and after 5 hours we must be over Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, or even Pakistan, judging by the jet plane escort we've had on our tail for the past half hour. I dare not tell Julie though as this flight is already proving a traumatic experience. Ever little bump is sending her into a state of panic. At times her right hand shakes uncontrollably. If only she could fall asleep! She is hating every minute of this flight, all 660 of them. (I almost wrote down 666 minutes, now that would have been a bad omen!) Well, there's three hours left, and I've just realised that the military jet escort was actually the little red light at the end of the wing! How stupid of me! I'll blame the altitude!
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