Home Tin Tent Tour Bahamas Bound Round the World XC Skiing Cancer Strikes Log of Wawa Links CONTACT Introduction Map of NZ North Is Aukland, NZ Rotorua, NZ Map of NZ South Is Christchurch, NZ 1 FranzJosef, NZ Haast, NZ Twizel, NZ Mt. Cook, NZ Christchurch, NZ 2 Map of Australia Map Victoria Detail Melbourne, AU 1 Melbourne, AU 2 Melbourne, AU 3 To Sydney, AU Sydney, AU 1 Sydney, AU 2 Cairns, AU 1 Cairns, AU 2 Lorne, AU Warrnambool, AU Ballaret, AU Melbourne, AU 4 To Dubai, UAE Map of UAE Dubai Primer Dubai, UAE 1 Dubai, UAE 2 Dubai, UAE 3 Gulf of Oman, UAE Dubai, UAE 4 Hatta, UAE Dubai Souks, UAE Dubai, UAE 5	Round the World
	If it’s Tuesday it must be Bangkok … NOT! Of all the airlines, we were most looking forward to flying on Thai.  However, the aircraft we were to board for the1:30 am flight was broken down in Sydney and wouldn’t be able to take off for Melbourne until much later that morning.  So our luggage was returned and we were bussed to the Park Royal, a beautiful downtown hotel, for a few hours sleep and a full breakfast.  Due to the delay, we missed our connection to Dubai and no other direct flight had seats available for at least three days.  Rather than accept the free-hotel-room-and-fix-this-in-the-morning passoff, we insisted on resolving the questions immediately.  At our suggestion, the Thai rep finally investigated two-leg alternatives to get to Dubai.  We opted to fly to Colombo, Siri Lanka, the same night and pick up an Emirates flight to Dubai, arriving about 5:30am.  Miraculously, everything worked, including luggage and delivery of messages to our nephew, Nathaniel, in Dubai! As advertised, we can’t say enough about the in-flight service on Thai Airlines.  However, they failed to arrange our ongoing transport from Bangkok before we arrived and seemed only marginally competent or service oriented at the Bangkok transfer desk.  We’d certainly fly them again, but no longer expect customer service miracles on the ground. We collected the visa that Nat had dropped off at 3:30 am and cleared immigration and customs with no hassles.  Nat quickly delivered us to their downtown apartment and Michele’s welcome. We’re here!  We can see the Arabian (Persian) Gulf out the window, along with much of the desert miracle that is Dubai and the United Arab Emirates. Cool … more later!