I just realised that two years ago today Justine and I began our first overseas holiday. While on holiday, I made sure to document our travels both with the camera and with the pen. If you didn’t read along the first time round, or you’d like the be an armchair tourist, go ahead and have a look!

It doesn’t feel like it’s been 20% of a decade since we were there, but it has. I have a lot of fond memories of this trip (as I’m sure most readers can attest to) so I’m going to enjoy reliving it through these posts.

Read from the beginning or catch up to when we first landed in London.

It’s taken almost three months, but finally the dispute over ridiculous charges on our credit card for what is, in my opinion, possibly the worst hotel ever — the Whiteleaf Hotel — has been closed.

A recap: We checked into the hotel (detailed elsewhere on the net, we found shortly after checking out) and were charged before we even saw our room; our first room (on the first floor, just behind reception) had our bed propped against the wall, and was being treated for bugs.

Our second room (on the fifth floor), up a series of incredibly steep stairs, was as disgusting as detailed in the link provided earlier. Except there were animal droppings on the floor, too.

After arguing with the on-duty manager for an hour that we did not want to pay the charges and were willing to stay and pay for the first night only, I was ready to snap so to avoid ruining our trip with a night in the big house, we left immediately.

Unfortunately, the day didn’t get any better. I couldn’t call the bank reverse charges (the three numbers I tried didn’t work at all, and the phone booths smelled like pee). As it was fashion week we had an incredible amount of trouble finding a room. We found and booked an expensive-but-nice-looking hotel, but we couldn’t get it for that night. It took almost five hours of wandering through London, at night, before we were able to find a place far in excess of our needs. To tired to fight, or care, we paid that as well.

In all, that one night’s accommodation would have cost us around $750. If it came to it, I was ready to put it down to a bad holiday experience and leave it.

When we came back home, I figured I may as well try and dispute it. My first visit to the bank had me arguing with the “service” lady that yes, I had paid, but no I didn’t receive the service because no reasonable civilised human being would pay for a room so disgusting. I’m hardly a French Duke in need of five-star accommodation, I just don’t want to be afraid of roaches crawling over me while I sleep… especially when paying so much for the privilege. Besides, I didn’t have all the paperwork anyway.

My second visit to the bank, a week or two later (and two emails without response trying to contact the company to discuss my grievances — they had also overcharged us, which I hadn’t realised until then), and I had a much more reasonable lady who had faced a similar experience in the past and was more than willing to assist. I didn’t expect much, but at least the bank takes the disputed charge off your credit card until it is completed (win or lose) and you don’t pay interest on it in that time.

The 45-day deadline for disputes was almost up last week, and I’d received nothing from the bank about it. I had to call about another funny problem with my credit card (it showed they owed me money!) and I asked how the dispute was going.

Well, the entire charge (almost $550) was reversed on the credit card! I had initially expected only part to be refunded as I thought it fair if we had paid the first night’s accommodation even though we left. They were even kind enough to refund the International currency conversion fee.

What a win. Me: 1. Bank: 2,895,728

Now that I’ve finally been able to catch up and turn all my plogs into blogs, I will post a list of all of the blog entries for each day in case any have been missed by people who are interested in reading about our overseas exploits.

• London
  • Day One
  • Day Two
  • Day Three
  • Day Four
• Paris
  • Day Five
  • Day Six
  • Day Seven
• Amsterdam
  • Day Eight
  • Day Nine
  • Day Ten
• Munich
  • Day Eleven
  • Day Eleven (later)
  • Day Twelve
  • Day Thirteen
  • Day Fourteen
• Prague
  • Day Fifteen
  • Day Sixteen
  • Day Seventeen
  • Day Eighteen
• Vienna
  • Day Nineteen
  • Day Twenty
  • Day Twenty-One
  • Day Twenty-Two
• Venice
  • Day Twenty-Three
  • Day Twenty-Four
• Rome
  • Day Twenty-Five
  • Day Twenty-Six
  • Day Twenty-Seven
  • Day Twenty-Eight
  • Day Twenty-Nine
  • Day Thirty
• Bern
  • Day Thirty-One
  • Day Thirty-Two
• Lyon
  • Day Thirty-Three
• Marseille
  • Postcard from Marseille
  • Day Thirty-Four
• Barcelona
  • Day Thirty-Five
  • Day Thirty-Six
  • Day Thirty-Seven
  • Day Thirty-Eight
• Paris
  • Day Thirty-Nine
  • Day Forty
  • Day Forty-One
  • Day Forty-Two
• London
  • Day Forty-Three
  • Day Forty-Four
  • Day Forty-Five
  • Postcard from London
  • Day Forty-Six
  • Day Forty-Seven
• Bangkok
  • Day Forty-Eight
  • Day Forty-Nine

Well, we landed safely a few minutes to eight last night. We bought our maximum 4.5 litres of alcohol and instead of using the ePassport checkin, we went through the normal way together — the ePassport line was short, but incredibly slow so we switched — which was lucky since we had to go through together to get the booze in.

After impatiently waiting for our bags we were faced with an incredibly long line for customs, but like about half of the other people there, we pushed in to make things go faster. Nothing was confiscated, though we thought a wooden hat purchased from a lady on a boat in Thailand may have been. Probably wise to have declared it, though.

We were greeted by what I can only call the “cheering paparazzi” as we strolled out of immigration; very embarrassing but it was fun anyway. I’m disappointed they didn’t have a badly drawn up card with our names misspelled somehow.

On the hazy trip home — we only had a few minutes sleep on the plane and had woken up at 4am Bangkok time — Justine began to freak out that she’d forgotten a Venetian mask that she had been carrying in a separate bag the entire time since Venice (about three weeks) to avoid crushing it. We stopped and thankfully it was quickly found.

We had a bit of a chat at Dad’s house and I showed a few photos and then I drove home where, upon pulling into the drive way, things went a bit strange. On seeing the exterior, and then the interior of the house, for some reason it didn’t feel like my house even though I knew perfectly well it was. Justine mentioned the same thing before I had a chance to say it so obviously I wasn’t alone. Quite a surreal thing walking around your own house, knowing the place intimately yet it not feeling like yours.

When I woke this morning (not that I slept much, a few hours maybe) the place still felt distant but a lot better than the night previous. Since we both couldn’t sleep we got up and unwrapped all our souvenirs; it felt very much like Christmas.

It’s three o’clock and I have just realised that I have not yet had lunch, or eaten anything except for two chocolates at all. Isn’t being a zombie from jet lag fun? There are a few photos I had put online at http://storage.bludger.org/images/trip/ but in my current state I don’t know if they look very good or not — I know the photos are fine but the processing might be a bit off, which is why they are there for now.

Day Forty-Nine
Bangkok
25 September 2007 22:05

Today was, sadly, the last day of our holiday, not including travel.  We went on another tour, which headed out early to see Thai temples and the Grand Palace.

We first saw the gold Buddha, which is a large, solid gold, 5 ton Buddha statue.  People were crammed into a tiny room just to see or pray to it.

The guide then ushered us onto the Wat Pho temple.  Here, there is a 46 metre long reclining statue, covered this time in gold leaf.  Even though the first one is impressive I liked this one better due to it’s immense size.

Next, after yet another bus ride, was the Grand Palace.  I did not realise how young the country is, so even though temples are made to look old there is a lot of concrete around making it all seem rather new. Here, we saw the Jade Buddha.  A single piece of jade, it’s still small but nonetheless very nice.  Strangely, you can’t take photos inside but if you go out of the room you can easily take photos through the window.

It’s like this in other rooms, some you can take photos, some you can’t.  We saw the throne room, coronation room and the King’s private temples.  Some of them, anyway.

As we left the Palace, we were faced with a wall of people forcing souvenirs onto us.  One guy in the tour group had ten or so chasing him.

Finally, for some reason, we went to a gem “factory” and what can only be described as the dodgiest “video” I’ve ever seen.  Six slide projectors worked in unison to flash images trying to be a video.  Hilarious.

Exiting the theatre a horde of workers clung onto each person, couple or group and led them through a small workshop to a massive salesroom.  Most of the stuff was more than we were willing to spend — and not really to our tastes — so Justine bought some earrings.

An hour or so later and our mini van bus thing got us to our hotel.  We both had a Thai massage (about $20 for both, for an hour!) which involves a lot of stretching and prodding as well as massage.

After the massage we took a tuk tuk to the “sky train” and caught it to a huge shopping centre.  Prices were the same as at home; we decided to head back but first checked out another shopping centre.  This one had knockoffs of everything at extremely low prices.  DVDs, clothes, luggage, all fake, all cheap.  I looked around, while Justine had a pedicure, and we headed back without buying much.

A taxi driver tried to charge 500 baht ($22ish) for a very short ride but we managed to get it for 140 baht in the end.

Day Forty-Eight
Bangkok
24 September 2007 21:36

Our taxi ride from the airport, when we had finally figured out where to get the taxis, was hair-raising indeed.

The traffic here is as bad as I’ve seen on TV or heard about. The drver was doing 110 in an 80 zone and a number of times I thought a crash was imminent.

When finally we reached our hotel, the brief step out of the air-conditioned taxi into the hot, thick, humid street was a shock to the system.  After so many cheap hotels we’ve gone for a 5-star hotel, partly because we got a good deal, and besides smelling of smoke it’s quite nice.

Since our time is limited, we opted to do some “tours” instead of legging it ourselves as we’ve been doing.  Our feet need a break anyway.

The first tour was a rice barge along the canals of Bangkok.  I new the city was on the water but am surprised at how much water, rivers and canals there are here.  The barge moves at quite a pace which makes taking photos quite a challenge.

The barge came to a stop on some stairs (literally, it just pushed onto them) which came out of the water.  Here, people were washing their clothes on the bank in muddy waters.  Washing themselves, too.

We got off the barge with the group, turned around onto a dock and got onto a larger boat where we cruised back to the starting point.  Thai fruit was served but we didn’t likemuch of it.  Mango and sticky rice wasn’t bad though.

Our tour bus took us back to the hotel in the busy streets again; it’s strange seeing a city this was as we have been on street level the whole time.  This feels a bit removed from it all.

At the hotel we hit the pool, on the top floor of the building, which offered nice views.

Another tour, this time for dinner took us to an old, lame restaurant.  There were maybe 15 guests in the place who all came to see traditional Thai dancing.  The dancing was fine but we expected a lot better than this!  I guess you get what you pay for.  The dancing included a “battle” scene with people in “monkey” and “demon” costumes.

Since our day had been technically 36 hours, we both crashed and need some sleep.

Day Forty-Seven
Over Europe (?)
23 September 2007

Not much to write about today.  We woke at around seven, ate a quick breakfast and headed for the tube.

We disembarked at the wrong terminal but there is a free train between the terminals at Heathrow.  It took 20 minutes before it even left.

It’s easy to see why people take the train all over Europe.  While the actual plane part is fine, all the security having to check in hours before, it’s very time consuming.  We even had to take our shoes off for a scan!

Again a large plane with no personal screens to keep us entertained.  Being in a large plane for a dozen hours is surreal and when you finally get off it’s sometimes hard to remember when it’s supposed to be.

Today only lasts 12 hours (for us), so it’s surprising there’s little to talk about.