One of the worst journeys of my life was on a flight from Brisbane to Bangkok…
My travelling companions were friend Sylvia, my twenty year old daughter Katrina and her friend Kerri.
The first half of the flight was uneventful. We all just had dinner, watched movies, played games, talked, and then went to sleep – so I thought.
The next thing I remembered was being awakened by Sylvia cursing on top note and yelling at the stewardess to do something about the noise.
The noise in question was being caused by a mob of party animals at the bar at the back of the plane who were more than a little inebriated. The Stewardess was to blame as she had given them permission to help themselves to drinks at the bar – a practice which has now been banned!
I was with Sylvia all the way and was ready to do some complaining of my own, until I looked to my left and saw that the two seats where Katrina and Kerri should have been sleeping were empty.
The party animals were all ushered back to their seats immediately, Katrina and Kerri included and they were both almost legless.
I was more than a little panic-stricken I have to say and I had visions of us all spending the night in the ‘Bangkok Hilton’. My biggest worry was how was I going to get them off the plane and through customs. Was I going to have to wheel them in a luggage trolley?
However, we still had three hours before touching down in Bangkok and the only thing I could do, other than have a complete nervous breakdown, was pour lots of water down their throats and do a lot of praying! Both of these solutions worked well enough for them to be able to walk from the plane and through customs without any problems.
That was only the first leg of our six-week journey to the UK and Europe so I was a little worried about what lay ahead - I actually did have cause to worry but those are stories for another time.
R Mulvenna
