Phuket, Thailand June 4, 2018

After about 23 hours in four aircraft, I arrived here with family friends on June 1 at about four in the afternoon.
I went out to the Ottawa airport at eleven in the evening of May 28, and found myself with about eight very unhappy campers....or travelers. These people were from Florida, and were going home. They had been "Assured", by Air Canada in Edmonton that they would be in Ottawa in time for their flight...the last United of the day, to Newark, and then they were onward to Florida. Good old AC got them to Ottawa one hour after the flight south. They did not have a single paper among then...all tickets were on cell phones. They booked again to Florida, but did not check times in Newark and when we got to Newark, the Florida flight was gone. Talk about hostility.  I did not help the matter for the first and only time in my life, I found myself defending AC. At first I was just kidding, but one guy got quite hostile, and nothing went right.

Tim Horton's has reduced the overnight counter to four small tables, two chairs each, so I went to a lounge area upstairs and that is where the Americans also came to.
Now, at Ottawa, there is no staff at the counters until 0400, but almost all check ins are by the traveler anyway.  I went over to a United machine, put in my passport, answered two questions...name and number of baggage pieces to be checked. Out came my three Boarding Passes and the baggage tag.

All flights, except the one to Newark were ahead of time at arrival. We were held for 30 minutes, about 100 miles out.....thats when the Florida folks realized what had happened...some were just behind me on the plane.

For the first time in all my flights into and out of Asia, we did not have a headwind at any time, so were well ahead of schedule in Tokyo and at Bangkok which is another six hours from Tokyo.
At Bangkok, I had a dispute with one taxi driver who wanted 1200 Baht for the ride to the city. I know government regulations only allow for maximum of 400. We had words and I suggested I would report him to the Tourist Police....and took his number. I got another car, who said he did not know the cost because he did not know where the hotel was. I was in the car, and while he called, he saw me....it was intended that he would...make note of his number. He screamed..."What you do?",and I told him that I knew the rules and would be reporting him....he then said 400 baht, and we were on our way.
I had 24 hours in Bangkok to rest and allow for any flight delays, and was met by friends and all ended well. It was 0100 Thursday morning.
I will do an update in about ten days...around June 15.