Friday 4th September, 2026
The airport was very quiet and we quickly checked in, passed though security and immigration, got our morning coffee and had plenty of time to wait for our flight to board. Not long after we settled, the girl from the check in counter came up to us and said one of us needs to accompany her back to our suitcases - they had spotted a phone in one, sure enough Tania had her old phone in her suitcase as a back up just in case. Weirdly, it had been in there for every other airport check we had been through, and this was flight number 7 for us on this trip. Anyway, it was quickly sorted and we were back to waiting for the boarding call.
The Paro airport is very small and I think only 2 airlines actually fly there, Bhutan Airlines and Druk Airlines, both Bhutanese. As we walk across the tarmac to the plane, we notice that the plane's name is "Dorji", which was our tour leader's name for the last 6 days - co-incidence!
We flew for about 40 mins and landed at Kolkatta India, where some of our passengers disembarked, and other boarded. We stayed on the plane during this time and had to identify our carry on luggage. This was another first for us. Another 2 hours of flying and we landed in Bangkok, eventually lining up for immigration patiently waiting in a long line. Well a nearby lane right next to us opened and hundreds of passengers kept streaming past us. Graeme became agitated and very annoyed as our line was not moving at all. He questioned a nearby airport worker twice who implied for us to just wait. Not long after, an imposing security guard arrived and indicated to both of us to follow him. In silence we walked about 200m not knowing where he was taking us. Should Graeme have been more patient and is there going to be a cavity search ?? To our surprise we were taken to the diplomat area with only a few ahead of us to be processed. A scary situation but before long we had cleared immigration and breezed through customs.
We had arranged a transfer to our hotel booked through booking.com and that worked extremely well, both with communications and directions on how to find our taxi. An hour's drive later and were dropped off to our hotel. Dropped our luggage and decided to walk to China Town, a 45 min walk in the humidity passing a lot of roadworks and construction, so it wasn't particularly exciting.
Chinatown itself was very interesting, we walked through many of the streets, had dinner of Pad Thai at a street stall and caught a tuk tuk back to our hotel arriving in record time after weaving in and out of traffic.
Saturday 5th September, 2026 - Still in Bangkok
After so many early morning starts we slept in and relaxed this morning. We had a call from our granddaughter and eventually ventured out for some breakfast at around 11:15. We Googled for breakfast spots near us and found a great little cafe within 2 minutes walk situated on the canal called Bakies Roasters. Scrambled eggs on sourdough, mushrooms and baked tomato, and nice hand pressed espresso coffee! We vowed to return tomorrow.
Spent the rest of that day walking the nearby old town district, it was very hot and we returned to the hotel around 15:30. Then ventured out later for dinner at a local cafe, spring rolls, Mo-Mos, Pad Thai and a beer for 300 baht. We topped that off with Magnum Cornettos from the 711 for 100 baht, How good is that for dinner, AUS$16.88 !! (100 baht is about $AUS 4.20)
Sunday 6th September, 2026 - Still in Bangkok
We ordered a GRAB car (the Thai equivalent of Uber) and off we went, spent about 2.5 hours there and about 700 baht. Grabbed a GRAB back to the hotel.
Had a shower and got ready for our deep tissue Thai style massage in Thailand, an hour long experience which switched between pleasure and pain. Glad we did it though.
Met the group members and after checking over required Visas etc. the majority of us headed out for dinner at a local Thai restaurant. We next meet at midday tomorrow to head to the airport and onto Cambodia.
Wow – superb timing to see the Paro fort lit up. I’m guessing that less than 0.1% (or perhaps even 0.01%) of the World’s population has seen this.
As for the confirmation of on board luggage, it is evidently because you were not disembarking while others were. The issue surely is to make sure none of the on board luggage is unattended, probably more so for safety rather than inadvertently being left behind.
Being asked to ‘come with me’ by airport security would have been a bit spooky and apprehensive.
Flying stopover in Thailand then.