We obviously made sure to hit up the breakfast buffet one last time, though its options seemed to have deteriorated a little bit each day. Shortly thereafter we checked out and bid adieu to the Conrad amidst a passing rain shower and rainbow. If sporadic showers are what one must endure in peak rainy season, it really isn’t so bad.
As the Conrad is on the southernmost tip of the island of Koh Samui, it takes about an hour to get to the airport in the far north. The farther north one drives, the fewer locals one encounters, and the trashier the tourists appear. There are many people here with poorly thought out tattoos. We made a brief stop at a petrol station, where the attendant inexplicably was offering us a two liter bottle of water for free. This seemed highly suspect and we declined.
Rather than go straight to the airport, we made a brief detour to a large Buddha known simply as “The Big Buddha,” though the Thai version of Wat Phra Yai sounds more legit. As you can probably tell just by looking at it, it is not especially ancient, though some may consider 1972 to be a long time ago. It wasn’t too crowded when we arrived with the exception of a Russian family doing a strange photo shoot in front of it, and an Israeli family running around ringing some of the bells. It was like a joke. Russians and Israelis frolicking about in a place that isn’t theirs, but acting like they own it.
It was a quick five minute drive from Big Buddha to the airport. The Koh Samui airport is bizarrely arranged. While I appreciate the semi-outside/tropical feel to it, efficiency was not at the fore when it was designed. We had to walk through some kind of strange pedestrian mall with shops and cafes to get to the checkin counters and then reverse back the same way we came to get to the security line for the gates.
After doing all this, we only had to wait at the gate for about 15 minutes until boarding commenced. Soon we were on the tram to take us to our A319 bound for Hong Kong. The rain was now coming down quite heavy as we departed for our three hour flight. Nicole’s bland meal was again served with peppers. We touched down at Chep Lap Kok around 330pm, and after weighing numerous options including flying to San Francisco or spending the night and going to Tokyo the next day, we settled on an option that hadn’t even been discussed until this morning…keep going all the way back.
The Tokyo option was really only there because we thought business was a possibility, but with a cheeky family of four listing for those seats ahead of us, that option quickly went away. Alas, to keep the day going, we had to kill about five hours in the Hong Kong airport, a feat which didn’t seem so daunting since we saw there was a nice United lounge. With that being said, Hong Kong is one of those airports that won’t let you through security until you have a seat. And thus, rather than relax in the club, we spent our time in the departure and arrivals hall waiting until 90 minutes prior to the flight when they could give us the green light.
In the end, the whole policy seemed pointless because we were still issued standby tickets with no seat. As an added bonus, I got SSSS on mine —the international code for supplementary security screening for suckers. By the time we passed through customs, security, took the train to the terminal, and walked to our gate, we didn’t have all that much time to kill. We knew we weren’t going to get business seats going from Hong Kong to LAX, but there were very few seats available on the plane as a whole.
There were a total of about 8 of us on standby, and the first four (including us) filled up the remaining purple seats in United’s premium plus cabin. I think that’s about as good as we could hope for given the circumstances. For a route that just started less than two weeks ago, the large 787 left with just two open seats. Premium plus gives you a slightly better seat over economy and better meal presentation. Sleep, however, cannot be expected unless in a lie-flat seat which we did not have.
If we hadn’t gotten on United, we were debating taking the later direct flight to LAX on Cathay Pacific, but it’s good that we didn’t. Nicole saw that it diverted back to Hong Kong after four hours of flying. In the end we endured the 12+ hours with mediocre United food, though Nicole was pleased with the very bland dinner of rice that was served. We were served breakfast an hour before landing when it was about 4 pm in Los Angeles. I will never understand this. It was a relatively smooth process through Global Entry and collecting our bags before hopping in an Uber and going home.
It will be good to have an extra day of recovery by pushing through today. After all, I need to work on my reflections post and nurse an old table tennis injury I sustained in Brunei.
passports & pepto bismol 