The Cave

For some reason our tickets were cheaper if we took this weird route. The question bothering both of us the night before while we packed for this mammoth 48 hours of sitting on flights and waiting in airports, was:

WILL WE EVER SEE OUR BELOVED, WELL-PACKED, RATHER BATTERED BACKPACKS EVER AGAIN???

With this in mind, we made sure we had a spare pair of underwear and our washbags in handluggage.

And off we set.

PART 1: Luxor to Cairo
Apart from being shouted at by the security guard for turning up too early (?!!), the trip was uneventful, and we arrived on time.

PART 2: Cairo to Barcelona to Madrid
Iberia Airways. Couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery. Talk about unimpressed. If I could be bothered (and thought it would make a difference) I’d write and complain.

But I’ll start at the beginning. We landed in Cairo - terminal 1 - at about 5.30pm. Our flight out (from terminal 2) was due to leave at 1.25am. Having loads of time to kill, we decided to walk between the two terminals. Not the nicest walk, but it was good to get some exercise. Any hopes we’d had of chilling out at Terminal 2 were well and truly dashed: there’s really not much there, and…to exacerbate matters…we weren’t allowed to check in and go through to departures until 11pm. Despite waiting since 7.15pm, we still managed to be the last ones through.

The flight was, predictably, delayed. No one told us this, so most people (not our lazy selves) were waiting in a queue for about 2 hours!

Luckily we had enough time before our connecting flight in Madrid that we weren’t too concerned.

That was until it became apparent in Barcelona that the cabin crew had managed to lose one of the passengers. (After being fed dinner at 3.30am, we couldn’t give a damn either way). A mass-hunt ensued in which we all had to identify ourselves no less than FOUR times to three different people, and have our names checked off a list. In an amazing demonstration of incompetence, they STILL couldn’t work out who was missing (though we suspect it was the guy who had his passport taken off him and who was escorted away from the gate at Cairo airport).

PART 3: Madrid to Stockholm to Helsinki
Against all the odds we made it to Madrid in time for our connecting flight, and happily, we didn’t have much time to wait.

Also, happily, this flight was not run by Iberia, but by the wonderful Finnair (complete with gormet food…yes…MORE free food…). (And yes, we did have a bit of a laugh about “flying on fin air”…ahah-ha-ha-hum…but by now we’d been going for over 24 hours, so might be forgiven?)

This flight was completely uneventful, and quite comfortable.

One thing we hadn’t counted on. We’d come from a desert climate, and were heading to the steamy climes of Thailand. In Helsinki it was snowing. A lot. So much so that the planes were being sprayed with anti-freeze.

PART 4: Helsinki Airport
We liked Helsinki Airport. So much so that we want to visit Finland (properly attired) now! We had a 7 hour stopover here - enough time to wash our hair in a sink, scrub up a bit, have a good dinner and an even better bottle of wine, finish a book each, AND get drunk. Quite a busy 7 hours.

PART 5: Helsinki to Bangkok
Again, uneventful. Finnair again (but this time with some horrible food). And (as Tom notices) the cabin attendents weren’t quite so pretty…the films were rubbish, too. But, as we neared the 48 hour mark, I think our tolerance levels had dropped somewhat…!

PART 6: Bangkok
And an hour-long taxi ride later we made it to our hotel. Locked the door. Sorted out all the washing. Went to bed.