To Bangkok

Our trip took us first to Bangkok, with a 2-night/1 day stopover there. A kindly dropped us at the airport in plenty of time. In fact we had a short wait even before the checkin counter opened, but this was part of “the plan” - namely to have something to eat (and drink!) in the lounge! Thai use the Air New Zealand lounge at Tullamarine (they're Star Alliance partners).

If my memory serves me correctly, the lounge has been expanded, because now it's quite large, and it wasn't very busy at the time we were there. Anyway the New Zealand bubbly was fine!

The flight was on an Airbus 350, which Thai have only recently started to operate on the Melbourne route. I really just can't get excited by the concept of flying on a "new" type of aircraft;  in spite of what the enthusiasts say on the internet;  basically, all planes are just metal tubes and minor differences in things such as the size of windows just don't "grab" me.   And each airline/plane seems to have a different control system for the inflight "entertainment", so I had to work that out.   Even so, I couldn't find any movie of interest (although S watched a couple).

At 8 h 45 m (and a 4 hour time difference), the flight was longer than I'd anticipated, but things went smoothly enough, and after finding our way around the barn that Bangkok airport is, we had a quick passage through immigration and were on our way through the well-marked passageway to the Novotel (last time we were here there was a shuttle bus, but apparently no more). UPDATE - on checking next morning, the shuttle indeed still operates.   But from the 'arrivals'  level (Level 2), not the 'transportation' level to which I had instinctively headed.

The hotel is large, modern and very functional, but my body was telling me that it was nearly 3 am (although the clock said 11 pm local time), so after a much needed shower, I was in bed!