Goodbye Welcome Back in one day OR how the ashes of my plans were scattered all over...

Left: With relative optimism saying goodbye to Phuket... Phuket Iland from the air while taking off from Phuket Internatinal Airport last evening!

While taking off from Phuket last evening, I was contemplating my chances of actually making it to Amsterdam on Tuesday. I thought, expected that when they succeeded to open up the airports again that then I would have a very god chance getting back to Amsterdam on time, because I had a connfirmed seat on the tuesdaymorning flight from Istanbul to Amsterdam. My sincere strong hope was that I would just squeeze trough all this ash disaster striking out all over Europe and the rest of our planet.
Also knowing that if I would not be able to take my flight it might be a pretty long time before getting another chance!

Arriving in Bangkok, after witnessing a beautifull sunset over Thailand, also from the plane, I arrived at Suveranubumi Airport Bangkok...........First I had to collect my luggage, because at Phuket Airport they had refused to book all my luggage straight trough to Istanbul/Amsterdam.. had to check-in again in Bangkok, they told me, because no lugage was labelled trough to anywhere within the no fly zone above Europe.
Arriving with Thai Airways at Suveranubumi I first had to walk to totally the other side of the departure hall... Turkish Airlines is located totally oposite Thai Airways, max distance, haha... and that means quite a walk.
A very charming lady at the check-in desk of Turkish Airlines, was totally happy by letting me take the flight to Istanbul BUT she said, after that I had to wait.... and the situation wasn't that good right now to get stuck in Istanbul. She told me I would be far better of to wait here in Bangkok, THailand for when flights would get restored to Holland, then when I would do so in Istanbul, far beter off she said.
BUT my visa was running out last night and according to Thai law I had to leave Thailand that night. When telling her that, she went to confer with her supervisor, who then came back and told me that Thai Immigration waved all visa limitations for passengers who were booked on flights to Europe till the end of the month... so I would be totally safe if I would remain here in Thailand instead of finding myself in a possible very big mess in Istanbul. O, and Turkish Airlines wanted me to sign a waver of responsibility by the airline if I got stuck in Istanbul unable to get the connecting flight to Amsterdam.. hehe... makes decision-making even more easy huh? ;-)
With such stern advice of Turkish Airlines themselfs, I finally decided not to take the flight and wait here..... after thanking her I turned around and with the whole pile of luggage in front of me walked the whole hall back again to Thai Airways and get myself asap on the first flight back to Phuket............. all in all, arrived back home in Patong around 1 am, deadtired BUT received by a very happy Kik, and Gong, the housekeeper, that I made this wise decision.

The next morning, following the travelnews from Europe, I was more or less relieved that I had taken the right decision to cancel because flight in to Amsterdam were not yet restored and as such I would indeed have been stuck in Istanbul with no reasonable chance to get back to Amsterdam.

When contacting Turkish Airlines Bangkok, they told me in the most friendly way that I could not expect to fly back to Holland before the end of the month, and that they hoped early May would see me returned back to Holland...EARLY MAY??
wowwww,
pffff that would create a small mess, allmost or as much as when I had to suddenly rush from Holland to Thailand last november!

Have one possible 'trick' upon my sleeve though: use my Chine Airlines return ticket to Amsterdam on the 25th.. if they kept me booked on that flight that is ... have to wait and see... I try to get hold of China Airlines office in Amsterdam, but they seem pretty busy haha... so that might take a while.
I asked Turkish Airlines about validity of my ticket with them, and they told me I had a full year to use it BUT had to start using it leaving from Bangkok, so I could not turn the use of the ticket around.... hehe, ofocurse not.... tickets from here with certain airtlines are more cheap then from Europe.
Well, now it is wait and see when having been able to get hold of China Airlines if the 25th of April can gets back on the table as serious option or that I have to skip that one as well ;-)

Below: More sunsets over Thailand to follow while being 'stuck' here on Phuket, it could have been worse ;-)