Maybe we spoke too soon, but before we managed to leave Bangkok, something of a dark cloud ended up hanging over the experience. Don't get us wrong, we both still think alot of Bangkok and have great memories, but we had a very stressful few hours the last day we were there!

It all started when we went online to see if we could check in. We'd tried for 2 days but the option hadn't been available, we just assumed this meant as it was a long haul flight, online check in was not an option. Anyway, we tried again that morning just before we were due to leave for the airport and after entering our flight number, discovered that our flight that was meant to depart 5.25pm that afternoon had been delayed until 5pm the following day! This was due to the snow back in the UK, they didn't have a plane for our journey. Not only was this bad enough, the thing that worried us more was that our tourist visa's ran out that day. So if we stayed in the country past midnight we were, let's just say, in trouble. Emma phoned Qantas and got through to a representative, we wanted to know why no one had informed us this was happening and it was only by chance that we'd checked that we even knew about the delay. They said our travel agent hadn't forwarded on any contact details to them (thanks STA!) We also asked what we were meant to do that night for accomodation and they simply said we had to sort ourselves out. Kelly and Hayley and our other friend Jo were also travelling to Sydney that day from Singapore and had had the same problem with delayed flights - however, they were put up in a hotel for a night with all food paid for! And they were with the same airline. So we were not happy. But most importantly, our visa's ran out that day, we didn't know what we had to do to sort that. We asked the airline and they said to contact immigration. After another phonecall, we established that we would need to go to the immigration offices in person and pay an additional 1900 baht (about 40 pounds) for an extension on our visa's. Time and money we did not have. After much deliberating and panicking, we decided to head to the airport and plead ignorance to the delay and hope we could somehow get on a flight. Even if it took us somewhere other than Sydney, just so we were out of the country and we could get a plane from that destination onwards.

We got to the airport with our hearts racing, genuinely terrified we weren't getting out of Thailand that day. They can fine you up to 200,000 baht for going over your visa so we were obivously keen to avoid that! We saw a desk for an early check in for our flight so joined the small queue. After an hour of that and getting more and more stressed by the minute, they finally opened the check in desks. There were no signs anywhere warning of the delayed flights so that made us even more anxious. We eventually got ushered over to a check in desk attendant who started to check us in as normal - this threw us a bit and we exchanged puzzled looks. She then stopped and tilted her head, we then knew what was coming. She explained she was very sorry but our flight had been delayed. At this point Candy burst into tears (we should explain that earlier we had agreed that if it came to it, we would cry on cue to get on a plane. However, this was actually genuine) Candy had started to cry before the attendant could finish and say - 'but we're going to try to get you on the 8pm flight tonight'. The relief that swept over us was immense, but we weren't out of the woods yet. We knew 'try' didn't necessarily mean they could get us on there. But at least another flight that day did exist - there was hope. After another 20 nail biting minutes, she told us we could get on that flight. To say we were happy was an understatement! There was then a problem with our ticket numbers matching up on the system so our moods took another nose dive while we waited nervously to find out if the attendant could sort it out. She did manage to and she also gave us some meal vouchers. We gripped the boarding passes so tight when she handed them to us, we were just relieved to have them! Thank you Qantas lady at Bangkok, you're a ledge!

Once we passed through passport control (and had our passports stamped to say we had left the country) we headed to the food area to use our vouchers. We got a big Burger King meal each - it was needed after that ordeal! Although we'd managed to get a flight, we were still anxious, thinking that something might go wrong and we wouldn't get on the plane. But for the most part, we were just so happy we'd managed to get a flight that day!

Throughout Thailand, we kept being asked if we were Australian, when we got on the plane, the flight attendant asked Candy is she was going home, and he was an Aussie, there must be something about the way we talk?